dog days of summer

Sleeping pups, visits from friends, adorable babies, backyard gatherings, delicious food, sewing, reading, new art, and a mangy fox:

hiking diamond head

I'm pretty sure that if you looked at any Hawaii travel guide, hiking Diamond Head would be listed as one of the top three things that any visitor must do while on Oahu. And while Larry and I typically eschew tourist activities in favor of experiencing things off the beaten path, it would be pretty lame to have traveled to Oahu twice and not climbed the island's most iconic landmark.

We didn't have the chance to hike Diamond Head during our first trip to Oahu, and we almost didn't have the chance to cross it off our list during our second trip either - by the time Larry got out of his business meetings in the late afternoon, we realized that climbing a volcanic tuff cone under the blazing Hawaiian sun would be about as fun as jumping directly into an active volcano. Actually, the latter would have been more pleasant and wouldn't have resulted in scavenging animals picking meat off my sun-parched bones for the following week.

So, an afternoon hike up Diamond Head was out. But on the morning Larry and I were to fly from Oahu to Maui, we were up early and on the trail out of the crater by 7 am. It was, how shall I say this?... HOT AS SHIT. As soon as our feet hit the beginning part of the trail (the flat part) I wished we had started the hike by 6 am. I wished we weren't doing this. I wished I could throw myself directly into an active volcano. If the flat part of the hike was this grueling, how was I going to survive the climb up the side?

Luckily it got better. It was still HOT AS SHIT, but I survived. There are lots of stairs and a decent elevation change, but it's not a long hike. Doable, just do it early and with plenty of water.






Plus, there was a pretty nice view from the top:

Survival of the Fittest Sweatiest.

And hiking back down went much quicker.

So we hiked Diamond Head and survived. It was worth it. It was a good finale to the end of our time in Oahu. We drove back to the hotel and chugged our last cold delicious smoothies at the Hilton Waikiki Beach.

Then we showered, stuffed our clothes into our suitcases, and headed to the airport for a quick flight to the neighboring island of Maui...

DC/VA/MD bucket list

Jefferson Memorial + Dead Cherry Blossoms, 2005

Larry and I have recently been discussing The Future. As in, where do we want to be one year/five years/ten years from now? That's a lot of big decisions and while we don't really have a plan mapped out, one thing that we do know is that we don't want to be in the DC area forever. We'd like to live somewhere else and explore a new town/city/state. (Or country? I'd welcome the opportunity to live abroad, but we don't have a lot of opportunities like that coming our way.)

Except for five years in college (Syracuse, New York plus a summer in Spain and a semester in Italy), I've lived in Northern Virginia my whole life. Larry grew up in western Maryland - about three hours west of the DC area, though he's been in the DC area for the past 13 years. I don't think either of us ever intended to stay so local (I wanted to live anywhere BUT the DC area after I graduated from college), it's just one of those things that happened. And while we love being close to family and the great group of friends we have here, we hate the cost of living, the traffic, and the competitive and fast pace of life in the DC area.

Our talk of a future move has me excited, but also has me reflecting on the things I like about this area along with some things that I still haven't done. We've definitely taken a lot of weekend adventures and explored Virginia, Maryland, DC, and West Virginia, over the ten years we've been together. We've enjoyed that both the beach and the mountains are within easy driving distance from our house. We like that the Virginia countryside is especially beautiful in the fall, and yet we still have easy access to all the activity in the city. Throughout the last decade, we've tried to take advantage of living in this area as much as we can: we've stayed in modern and traditional cabins, visited local wineries, hiked in numerous parks, picked berries at local farms, explored several Civil War battlefields, toured the West Wing, visited museums, witnessed the space shuttle flyover, eaten at too many delicious restaurants (and food trucks!) to count, enjoyed live music and theater, photographed a field of sunflowers, and rooted for our local sports teams.

But there are some things we've missed, too - things that have been on our someday list for way too long. So I perused my brain and my out-of-date Life List and started making a DC/VA/MD Bucket List - a list of things that it would be embarrassing to leave the area without doing (can you believe as a lifelong Virginian I've never been to Williamsburg or Jamestown???) and some places I went to long ago, but are worth revisiting (I have happy childhood memories of kayaking the Shenandoah River with my Dad and of visiting Chincoteague and Assateague Islands):

DC/VA/MD Bucket List

+ Climb Old Rag
+ Go sailing at the Eastern Shore
+ Visit Smith Island
+ Visit Tangier Island
+ Return to Chincoteague/Assateague
+ Have more summer winery days with friends
+ Restaurants: Komi, Restaurant Eve, Two Amy's Pizza
+ Go kayaking with Larry
+ Visit Williamsburg
+ Visit Jamestown
+ Hike to the summit of Sugarloaf Mountain and visit Sugarloaf winery afterwards
+ Explore Charlottesville
+ Visit Dinosaur Land

So here's to the next chapter (whenever that may be) and to taking advantage of the DC area while we're here! There are still plenty of old favorites to revisit and new places to explore...

artscape this weekend!

ArtScape is this weekend in Baltimore - it's the biggest free art market in the country. There will be over 150 art vendors, plus musicians and performances, an art car parade, carnival rides, and of course street food. (Yay, funnel cakes! And crab cakes, too!)

My shop will be vending at ArtScape, so after your finish stuffing your face with fried cakes both sweet and savory, stop by Funnelcloud Studio in Booth 141. I have 8 new art prints making their debut at this weekend. Here's a sneak peek at what's new:

(These prints are not yet available in my Etsy shop - but they will be in the coming weeks, after I rest up and photograph them.)

ArtScape 2013 hours:   Friday, July 19 | 11 am to 9 pm
                                   Saturday, July 20 | 11 am to 9 pm
                                   Sunday, July 21 | 11 am to 8 pm

in june, I read 9 books and sewed a quilt top...

...but didn't do much else. Success or failure?

The headaches left me drained this month. Even when I wasn't in pain, I was exhausted. Like I've been hit over the head with a wrench and don't even have the energy to type an e-mail kind of exhausted. I only ventured out of the house a few times and even that was taxing. Yuck.*

Reading and sewing were my salvation during the pain-free days in June. I couldn't concentrate on art (or deal with paint fumes), so sewing my first quilt became my creative outlet. Turns out cutting fabric into little pieces and sewing them back together again actually quite agrees with me. Huh. The repetitiveness of making the quilt, the hum of the sewing machine, and the fact that it didn't require decision-making, just following steps, made quilting the perfect activity when I wasn't feeling well. Now for the hard part...turning the quilt top into an actual quilt. (Stay tuned, but don't hold your breath!)

Self-portrait with quilt top. Ha!

(Turns out using the camera's timer to take a photo of yourself holding up a giant piece of fabric is actually quite challenging. But anyway, that's 300 squares stitched together. If I ever finish quilting it, I will figure out how to take better photos of the final product.)

As for the books, here's what I read this month:

Wave by Sonali Deraniyagala
Orange is the New Black by Piper Kerman
The End of Your Life Book Club by Will Schwalbe
The Bite of the Mango by Mariatu Kamara
Tell the Wolves I'm Home by Carol Rifka Brunt
To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
Crossing to Safety by Wallace Stegner
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Don't Let's Go To The Dogs Tonight by Alexandra Fuller

* Anyway, I'm feeling better now! I finally got all of my June shop orders shipped last week and I even socialized and drank wine this weekend for the first time in a month! I'm slowly getting my shit together and getting back to normal and hoping for a productive July. Less bookworm, more busy bee.

(P.S. Show me what you're reading and drinking this month and tag your photos #booksandbeverages on Instagram!)