Hello autumn

I find myself with lots of free time on my hands after finishing up a long term work assignment this week. Hello to cold winds and rustling leaves, afternoon bike rides, and blogging again.

Changes

I haven't done a good job of updating this blog this year. What with warmer winds and sun-filled days and birds coming home again, spring is (sort of) upon us. The future always looks bright heading into my favorite season, but this year it's especially bright. Next month brings changes I've long been anticipating: a birthday, a move, different work, and a new chapter in my life.

One of the ways I know spring is coming? Last week saw my first dinner hour outside at work. Cold--but nothing a coat, a cup of tea, and maple leaf cookies couldn't handle.

Dinosaurs

In college I met a weird kid named Vinod who, knowing I'd been born in the Soviet Union, would interrogate me endlessly about all of the Russian writers I hadn't read and the Russian composers I'd never listened to. I've read lots of Russian writers since, but of course I've lost touch with Vinod and can't give him my opinions now.

Over the weekend I was going through some things, and I found this fantastic box of dinosaurs he gave me when he graduated.

There was a time when all you had to do was mention Vinod's name to get a good conversation going about his many marvelous oddities. Now, only a few far-flung friends remember him, and I never hear his name. All I have left of him are these dinosaurs and the soundtrack to A Clockwork Orange, which I either borrowed or stole from him. I don't remember. Henceforth I will refer to these dinosaurs as Vinod's Legacy.

One year

Winter nostalgia

I'm four in this picture; my sister Yana is five. Along with our brother, we spent our earliest years on our grandparents' farm in the Ukraine. Long winters found us digging underground snow tunnels and making igloos nearly every day. I usually don't long for the past, and I know nothing remains the same--not even in our memories. But when I look at this picture some twenty years later, I wish I could return to that time.

Paper cat

Life has been a whirlwind lately. I haven't managed to fit in time for photographs or drawing, but here's a picture of my newest friend--a clever paper lamp acquired during a white elephant gift exchange today.

November birds

Sunday

Today's a day for being lazy and doing small things and wishing--just a bit--for summer.

Sloppy sandwich

Today I put together something extra-wonderful for lunch. A delicious spicy black bean burger.

Sudsy sailing

Remember this little boat, loyal readers?

Pumpkins

Pumpkin donuts, pumpkin pie, and a whole lot of other pumpkin things filled up my October.

Most of these pictures are from a soup-making adventure a weekend or two ago, when we walked to Whole Foods and carried two pumpkins home with us on the bus. If you didn't know it already, pumpkins are harbingers of happiness. If you want cheering up, just walk down the street with a pumpkin in your arms. People will smile when they see you. They'll stop you to discuss your plans for the evening. "It's that time of year!" they'll carol with Christmas-bright voices, as they did to us. Caught up in the festive mood, Brian balanced his pumpkin on his head and refused to carry it any other way. (Did he look awesome, as he claimed? Well... I don't know--but his goofy grin certainly warmed my heart.)

At home we unloaded our groceries and took a twenty-minute apple cider break. We congratulated one another on our purchases, then proceeded to gut them. I carved, peeled, and cubed mine while Brian sorted through two bowls of pulp for seeds.

After we dumped the cubed pumpkin into a pot of boiling water, I nursed my shoulder (the one connected to my pumpkin-cutting arm) while Brian prepared the seeds for roasting. Then he pureed our pumpkin while I cleaned up the table for Round Two: slicing and dicing cabbage and carrots and turnips and things--tasks that inspired Brian to sing a brief ode to his green knife.

Then hundreds of minutes of stirring. Or perhaps thirty. While we waited, we ate pumpkin seeds and celebrated our soup triumph by inventing a truly awesome dance that the world will probably never see unless we make a music video.

Sadly, there are no pictures of the finished soup. We ate it immediately and I'm afraid it's long gone.

*All pictures in this post are my own except for the third one, taken by Brian.

Three masted schooner

I love pillows. Most of the time I have to restrain myself from buying and making them, because buying one pillow leads to buying more pillows. And that is pure excess. But just so you know what a lover of pillows I am: I keep two in my car for emergencies. While it's true that they've come in handy for picnics, mostly they just make my backseat look like a sad, sad couch instead of an actual, functional part of a car. But I digress. This is the pillow I made for Brian's birthday last month:

I drew the pattern myself, transferred it onto fabric with a white charcoal pencil, and sewed over it with a simple backstitch. I hadn't sewn anything by hand since last year, so it took a while to get used to threading a needle and pulling it through fabric again. But it was a lot of fun.

 

Another project I've had in the works for a long time is a soft flannel t-shirt. T-shirts aren't usually made from flannel, but I found the perfect fabric and improvised a pattern in my size, and I think it could work. I just need to start sewing.

In the meantime, stay tuned for photographs from my most recent project, which was nothing less than a weekend pumpkin extravaganza with the aforementioned owner of said pillow.

Daydream

It has been a month of gusting winds and bending trees, and I find myself spending most of my lunch hour out of doors. After a fast meal, I've taken to rushing outside so I can have the bench along the back of the building all to myself. There, I drink a mug of tea, eat something sweet, read my book, and reconnect a little with the wildest bits of a not-very-wild part of town. It's the best.

My boyfriend and I were talking about our ideal careers the other day. I really think the life of an old-fashioned forest ranger would be perfect for me. Living in an isolated cabin on protected land, I would tramp about the mountaintop maintaining  trails, collecting and analyzing plants and trees, keeping an eye on the wildlife, and intimidating poachers with my rifle. In the evening hours when the forest glows under a sky of stars, I would read or draw or write letters. Brian would build a fire and cook us a giant rustic meal, and then I'd beat him soundly at three games of dominoes in a row. I'm pretty sure we'd live happily ever after.

Indian summer, Part I

Oh Monday. I put my To Do list aside (mostly) and enjoyed a rare day off today. I've been reading like crazy all month, so I began the morning as usual: with breakfast and a book.

But then the kitchen called to me and my stomach called back.

What kind of a breakfast person are you? Do you skip it, or eat enough to last you into the afternoon? Do you devour the same thing each day, or do you mix it up? Me, I have the same thing every morning: toast with butter, a glass of whole milk, a big mug of coffee, and a banana. When winter comes I switch to oatmeal. I love my morning same-olds. I am very loyal.

But when it comes to lunch and dinner and snacks and second-dinner, I love to experiment. Today I had cannellini beans with shallots and tomatoes from the garden. I toasted a hunk of rye bread. Then I dipped into a jar of home-made pickles to counter the sweet, warm heat of sriracha-infused tomatoes.

Then, in the evening, a quiet, softly rustling, almost-too-long-neglected bag of bok choy whispered my name. And a box of tofu chimed in longingly. Cook us.

All in all it has been a wonderful day of foods. And best of all, there's enough left over for tomorrow's lunch.

Dear friends, I have been the laziest blogger in the universe. My problem is, when I don't draw much I forget to write. And I haven't been drawing much at all. I'm putting so many hours into this new job, I haven't figured out how to fit everything into the time I have left over. How do you manage it? How do you choose what is important to you? Or do you suffer, as I once did, from a surfeit of free time?

Moccasin-wearing

I'm almost done making a list of everything I'm looking forward to this fall.This is one of them:

Sunday soda

Reader poll: Who is your favorite person from history? What is your favorite beverage? I will combine your answers in one fantastic drawing.

September

Evening greetings, readers mine. The seasons are turning over, our weather is changing, and I find myself returning to my blog with new inspiration.

The past month has given me lots to write about. I reunited with a long-lost relative, got a new job, took some trips, recovered from an illness (and worried about a very ill friend), crossed a lake in a canoe, befriended a small black dog, and received two mustaches in the mail.

Life is pretty wonderful these days. Now tell me: what should I do this weekend? Any suggestions for almost-autumn activities?

Wednesday side-notes

This morning I unpacked my bag from a short trip to Minneapolis, and realized I'd worn black, gray, and white all weekend. (Plus one very neutral, wheat-colored sweater.)

I really love color, but there is something so comfortable about grays and whites--so that is what I mostly wear.

Two extremely unimportant side-notes about my trip:

First: a bellhop at the hotel thought I was a reader of the Wall Street Journal. Well, obviously I am, now that I know they publish articles like this:

I am definitely clipping this out and mailing it to someone.

Second side-note: guess who I met in the airport parking lot?

My car's identical twin!

Well, that's it. Have a lovely afternoon. I'm going to spend the rest of this hour with a bowl of chicken noodle soup. I'm as sick as the dickens.

Cat portrait

One last picture of Oscar. Tomorrow I return to drawings.

I would really like to take more human portraits, but it's so difficult to arrange.

There you are.

Sorry to disturb your sleep. 

I just needed to take a picture of something.

This:

The way your tail stripes glow in the sun.