A sea of waves.

I think this rug was made for me. Now if only I could get Anthropologie to send me one for free.

Greens.

Yesterday I finished my planting just in time for God to handle the watering. It was really lovely how that worked out. I planted some flowers, Gerbera daisies, Poppies, and Lavender (which I suppose is technically an herb but I don't ever use it to cook, I just love it for it's scent). I was too undecided about what fruits and veggies I wanted to plant besides the Sequoia Strawberry that I brought home a few weeks ago. After a little reading at home and advice from my dad I've since settled on lettuce, spinach, and summer squash. Tomatoes are always on my growing list, but it's still a little too early for them. I may throw in a yellow pepper as well. I don't often use them to cook, but I have no problem sharing. My goal for this week is to install a window box outside of our kitchen to grow the spinach in. I can imagine how nice it would be to be able to reach out the window and pick a salad. My Basil and Oregano sprouts are doing quite well in the kitchen. I'll have to thin them out soon.

Bed time.

Today.

We were out for coffee and bagels this morning and just as I was thinking that it would be a good day for some Simon and Garfunkel it started playing over the radio. I've since pulled them out from my vinyl collection at home. It's a good day for getting things done, I just which it were a tad warmer so I could open the windows and get some planting done.

I feel like I've been missing out on life this week*. Since November I have been working exclusively on the Taylor Swift card line in my real world job. Personally, I'm not a Taylor fan, but her card line is fun and different and I really enjoy working on it since I get to do all my own illustration and lettering. However, due to various reasons, we've also been working with shorter than usual deadlines for most of the programs and sometimes (like this week) things get a little insane. Basically I spent the past week working on Taylor cards in my cubicle during the day, and then going home and continuing to work on them there until I went to sleep. Exhaustion is the only word that comes to mind. So now that I am mostly finished with everything I'm breathing again and thinking about the possibilities of the weekend. I altered the little graphic above from one of my Taylor cards to make a cheerful little to-do list for myself.

- Devour one of the following books (assuming they have been delivered to my porch when I get home): Grow Great Grub: Organic Food from Small Places, or The Illustrated Quick Cook: Easy Entertaining, After-Work Recipes, Cheap Eats.

- Attempt a hodge podge chili recipe for dinner.

- Ride the bike. Outdoors if weather permits.

- Re-pot my fast growing herb sprouts.

- Start some preliminary sketches for various Three Bears jobs. 

- Watch more Star Trek Next Generation with Andrew. 

- Morning yoga (one of my favorite weekend activities).

- Get around to adjusting the length of the skirt that I got from the thrift store a month or so ago. 

- Finalize my tracklist for the Mix Exchange and get to work on some crafty packaging. 

- Soak in some newly purchased Khaki King and Volcano Choir albums. 

*With the exception of Tuesday which included Guys Pizza, haircuts, Phoenix Coffee, and LOST. 

Um...

Top (or future Halloween costume?) available from Forever 21.

Romans 15:13

A shirt design that I worked on over the weekend for a company called Simply Scripture. I think ideally the darker yellow would actually be a gold ink. (Click to enlarge)

Birdwatching.

I had to laugh when I saw that our friend Dana had posted this story about her cat Theo's birdwatching. I laughed because we have had something similar happening at our house lately. My aunt gave us a bird feeder for Easter and so I decided to hang it outside the office window. This is where our cats like to sit and watch the neighbor's gang of 6+ outdoor cats stroll through our backyard. The cats definitely seemed to enjoy their new birdwatching experience, but nothing could prepare them (or at least Bowie) for what came this weekend.

Yes, a bushy little squirrel, whom despite the fact that we have a backyard overflowing in acorns, decided to feast on the birdseed. This squirrel got Bowie so excited that he not only let out about a hundred meows in less than a minute but was clawing so furiously at the window that had it been warm enough to be open I'm sure he would have slashed right through the window screen and jumped on the fluffy thing. 

Dear old fashioned glazed doughnut at Starbucks,

I cannot resist you. You are evil and delicious. 

Sincerely, 

Cheryl Andrey

TOMS shoes + chili help?

I'm taking a break from my weekend work load to share a design I did for a contest a couple of weeks ago. Teen Vogue teamed up with TOMS shoes to offer a chance to have your own design turned into the next pair of TOMS shoes. Unfortunately, mine didn't make it to the final 10, but I'm still really happy with the work I did. You can vote on the finalists right now here: http://www.teenvogue.com/magazine/quizzes/toms_contest/toms_contest.

On another note, I have a lot of black beans and corn left over from a mexican pizza that I made last week. I'm thinking about making a chili with ground turkey. Something I can throw in the crock pot for the day that isn't going to make an obscene amount of servings that will end up being in my freezer for months (there's only two of us eating it). I haven't had any luck finding something online or in my slow cooker books and I'm figuring that I will end up making something up on my own based on a few recipes, but I wanted to see if anyone out there in blog land had suggestions before I tried that. P.S. I don't like really spicy food. 

AG Spring Fine Art Show.

Some pictures from last night's opening of the American Greetings Spring Fine Art Show. The first photo is of my piece "Bowie Rests on Rainbows" which already sold within the hour or so that we were there. There was a great turn out, Spaces Gallery was completely packed with people, and there was even an appearance by Cheer Bear. Excellent food. Lovely jazz. Beautiful art. 

(The Second piece from the top is by Johnny Yanok.)

Fabric+Fabric=Quilt.

One of my new favorite blogs is Fabric+Fabric=Quilt. I've been mulling over quilt ideas for years now, sketched out plans in my moleskines, saved scraps of color, but have yet to start my own. Every time I see a quilt I'm inspired in so many ways (color, shape, technique) that I can't seem to settle on just one.

Spring. Clean up. Birthdays.

My grandpa's birthday is in the spring so every year as a gift the whole family goes over to his house and cleans up the yard, plants some new annuals, and attends to any other household task that he might need help with. I typically have the job of edging their flagstone path and raking the old leaves out of the flower beds which leaves me with sore hand and arms, but I don't mind. This year, one of the things we did was paint my grandma's bedroom. She was getting tired of the wallpaper that was in there...that had been in there since they moved into the house over 20 years ago! So now it's pink, a very bright pink, but I think she likes it. We also celebrated Andrew's birthday during this event since his just passed last weekend. As part of our family tradition, he had to wear the hideous birthday hat for at least enough time for a few pictures. He was a pretty good sport about it. 

On another note, I love magnolias in the spring. For most of my life I have lived in a house with a magnolia in the front yard. They are so nice for a couple of weeks but then the petals brown and fall all over the ground. I wish they lasted longer, but it's things like that which make spring sort of a magical event. 

Cake and Little Bob.

Andrew's birthday at my mom's house. Our dog, Little Bob, was named after the dog in Harry and the Hendersons. 

Mark your calendars.

Along with many other great artists and writers, I will have a piece hanging in the AG Fine Art + Design show which opens next week at the Spaces Gallery in downtown Cleveland. The opening night has always been wonderful with lots of food, music, art and poetry & prose readings. I encourage any locals to attend.

My afternoon framing project.

Love it.

In our backyard.

To the lake!

Today's gorgeous weather allowed us to take a bike trip to the lake. We stopped at the art museum lagoon, Rockefeller Park Greenhouse, and Presti's during our trip as well. I brought our Polaroid along and shot a roll of film. One photo I did miss was when Andrew accidentally ran over a long strip of metal which then wound it's self into his gears and made his bike mostly unrideable for half of our trip home. 

Where's Summer B?

I listened and sang along to Ben Folds Five on my drive to work this morning and it was excellent. They are my favorite, hands down.