prettying things

i haven't been blogging because i don't know what to write about. normally, when i feel artistic, i have trouble finding an outlet for it. and sometimes, i don't feel particularly overflowing with creativity, but somehow i will create something with which i am quite pleased. it's complicated. to find an outlet for my creativity, i will often sink myself into an over-sized starbucks chair, with my grande cinnamon iced breve coffee beside me and a blank notebook and pen in my lap. for some reason, i always think buying new pens and notebooks will magically give me the inspiration i need, but this is rarely the case. [usually, it's the worn, loved book that has been my companion for years that receives many of my coffee shop/laundromat/two-in-the-morning musing.] and i don't even finish my coffee. i should stop buying grandes.

i gave up trying to pretend to be poetic and i rarely have the patience to finish and perfect a drawing, so i directed this energy toward our apartment. we moved in nearly two years ago, and i have had a difficult time loving the place. decorating an entire home is completely different than decorating one bedroom, which is all i've ever had to work with. plus, we don't just have money floating around to put towards making our apartment look pretty, so it's been a slow process. and because i can't really buy stuff, i end up completely moving furniture around just about every six months or so. john has been ever so patient.

so, instead of trying to write and draw and what-not, i decided to sew. i took a visit to joanne fabrics to see if they had any cute fabric for sale that i could use to make my plain blue curtains prettier. i figured this would be a cheap, easy way to add some color and style to our living room. unfortunately, they had tons of cute fabric squares. this is unfortunate only because i ended up buying way more than i needed. but it was very exciting.

my curtains before their makeover.

my curtains after.

sure, they look cute, but don’t look too close. i literally did the least amount of work possible to put this together. john asked if i tucked in the fabric so it wouldn’t fray, and i said no way, why should i? it won’t fray that much. i even considered hand-sewing the strips on to keep from having to sew around bunches of fabric with my machine, but i figured that would end up being more of a headache and too time-consuming.

river approves. it's his favorite spot.

he likes to people-watch.

while on my trip just to buy fabric, i stopped and picked up some paint to paint my desk-turned-dresser. i have had this desk for about five years. i bought it at a neighborhood yard sale for ten bucks. then, for some bizarre reason i will perhaps never be able to explain, i painted it black and teal. uum, what? yeah. i don't know. i thought it would be cute. it wasn't. i wish i had pictures of it in all its black-and-tealness, but alas, i do not. so you'll just have to picture it that way.

the desk in my old, comfortably cluttered room

with its cheery red walls.

it's been an eyesore since that very confusing paint job of mine, so it was hiding out in our artmusicjunk room that used to be river's nursery. john recently made two simple wooden desks for himself and we were going to toss the ugly thing, but then, my genius husband sawed the desk in half. i was impressed. who knew a gross-looking piece of furniture could start making its way to becoming such a pretty little thing? poor john. he was going to use it as a nightstand, but then i stole it and sanded and painted it and now it is in our living room.

"but you wanted to get rid of it!"

"well, it's mine anwyay, and now i want it."

that’s exactly how it went. i love him. i still have to get some knobs for it and paint some more details on the sides, but so far i am loving the way it looks. 

by the way, sanding? a new, fun experience for me. for the first two minutes.

if that.

sticky sandy salty smelly

where can you go about your day sticky, sandy, salty, and smelly, because everyone else is in such a state? why, the ocean of course!

we took nearly 500 pictures, and unless a particular one is especially out-of-focus or of, say, someone’s butt, i will not delete a single one. i’d like to relive every second capture on film [cough, memory card] thank you very much. every experience river had during his first trip to the ocean. every sandy toe. every salt-water grimace. every taste, every breeze, every mesmerized stare and joyful smile.

our day started at 7:15 in the morning. it was very foggy as we turned left onto the highway and under a sign that told us we were headed to corpus christi [yay!], but within thirty minutes, the air had cleared and the morning sun sparkled on the asphalt. the drive to corpus is long and straight, but i like it. i love the farmland, the rows of corn that zigzag as you pass going 60, and the occasional side-of-the-road stands with peaches and tomatoes for sale. i love how miles and miles from the beach, seagulls can be spotted, and you know you are that much closer to stepping in the warm ocean water and gazing into endless ocean horizons.

whenever i arrive in corpus, my initial thought is, "oh! we are driving on a bridge over the ocean! take a picture!" but what does one get when they take a picture of the ocean while driving on a bridge? most likely blurry shots with the tail-ends of SUVs in the corner of the shot, or a passing pole directly in the middle. sometimes you might catch a clear image, but then, what is there really to see? gray-blue sky on gray-blue sea. not much to look at. alas, the tourist in me still wants a bridge-over-the-ocean shot. because guess what -- you're finally there! and nothing says that better than a bridge-over-ocean photo. am i right?! while most of them didn't turn out, a select few aren't too bad.

we first stopped at a corpus beach, and it was beautiful and sea weed-free. we left the camera in the car, offering our undivided attention to our water baby, watching him timidly approach the sea, hug my knees when a wave came, and squeal when he finally reached the conclusion that this was actually pretty freaking amazing [his thoughts exactly, i know it].

after corpus beach, we all piled in the van again [such drama every time -- rinse off in the ocean. try not to kick up sand on your legs as you walk back to the car. go back and rinse off some more. decided wearing flip flops isn't the best idea. take them off. run to the car because the ground is hot; meanwhile, kicking sand on your legs. try to hit the sand off your shoes using the side of the car. figure out what to do with our wet clothes. try to keep things generally clean. impossible. take off river's soggy diaper. oh, hello, river wants to nurse. now. naked. nurse. new diaper. attempt to buckle a mad, squirmy baby in the carseat. fail at the attempt to get the dog in the car while tracking as little sand as possible on the seat. by the way, what's worse than wet sand? wet sand and dog hair.] and made our way to starbucks. yes, starbucks. just to chill, you know? by the way, guys, this is really all you need to survive:

after some down time drinking a green-tea lemonade and reading a bit of jodi piccoult's song of the humpback whale [fitting, no?], we decided to go to port aransas. and you know what you have to do to get to port aransas...

ride the ferry!

my "we're on a boat" face.

colby's "we're on a boat" face. john said we have the same expression.

river didn't have a boat face.

and on the boat ... we saw a boat.

in port aransas, we stopped at this little shop called shell world. apparently, they are texas' shell supplier [as stated in painted letters on their building]. there you go, ladies and gents. if you ever wondered if there was a shell shop that sells any kind of shell you could possibly want [including $1,800 giant clams], here it is, tucked away on tiny port aransas. 

oh, but they not only sell shells that come from the sea. they also sell sea shit, aka, anything that comes from the sea. anything. this place has old bottles and buoys, as well as duct tape, picture frames, tires, cups -- you name it. if it was found in the ocean, bring it to shell world. not. even. joking. i love it.

after shell world, we went to a restaurant called kody's. holy crap. this place is amazing. besides the fact that we waited nearly 45 minutes for our food, it was almostsortakinda worth it. because i'm pretty sure this is the best place i've gone to for seafood in the corpus christi/port aransas area. then we cruised for a bit and came across the most bizarre little beachy neighborhood. with perfectly cut green lawns and houses every tacky beach color you can imagine. i felt like i'd stepped into the truman show. 

and then...we went back to the beach. this time, with the camera in tow. possibly, the most important part of the entire trip. i present to you photo vomit. i just couldn't stop. prepare yourself.

"hey, what is this cuhrazy stuff?"

"i wonder how it tastes."

apparently, pretty good. since he kept going back for more.

convincing river that splashing is a blast. "kick! splash splash! LOOK, IT'S SO FUN!"

colby liked the water.

until a wave came. 

wtf, colby? when i saw this picture, i laughed for like five minutes.

oh yeah, of course river wanted to nurse. while in the ocean.

so what's a mama to do? well, duh. nurse of course!

gotta get some dramatic "seagulls soaring through the sun-streaked sky" shots.

and last, but certainly not least ... who can go to a beach with a baby and not get a sandy baby butt picture?

ahh! don't you just want to pinch it?! maybe not. maybe that's just me.

we finished the trip off with some more seafood and a sink bath [for river].

we were going to get up to see the sunrise, because that is a must when you visit the ocean, but we had alarm clock complications. so we had an exciting hotel breakfast [i seriously love hotel breakfasts. i love that i can make my own waffle and mix apple and orange juice if i want and stuff a muffin in my purse for later. they make me really happy.] and then headed home.

thanks for the memories, beach. we should hang more often. i like like you.

:end ntoe: OHMYGAH. this is the longest post i have ever written.