The Start of Summer

It's been a busy few weeks for us newly-weds, with visiting family, parties in Chicago and some nice early summer weather. Work at the gallery had been interesting lately. I've had a lot of "take home" projects, from scanning and antiquing photos to organizing captions and formatting poetry. I also have been a bit accident-prone. I have at least one glass/paper cut on every single finger on my right hand, and a burn on my left hand. I seem to go through phases like this. I'll go for weeks without a single mishap on the job and then they all pile on at once. I'm sure I could draw conclusions on my broader mental state from this, but I choose not to.

In other big news, I took my yakima racks off my car for the first time in... um... well, since I've owned a car. This was not an easy decision for me as I always have liked the look of the racks, and for many years having them on was extremely practical. However, I don't think I've put a bike on the racks since I moved to Iowa City. It seems to work out here that if I'm going to need a bike somewhere, I will ride the bike to get there. If I'm going to take the car, that usually means I'm going to see my horse or hauling lots of stuff - activities which do not require a bike. So, as cool as they might look, I suspect the racks cut down on gas mileage and make a lot of noise at higher speeds. I am going to spend the next few tanks of gas gauging how much of a difference going rackless actually makes in these two areas and then make a final decision based on what I discover. I must say the initial change is somewhat unsettling. My car hardly looks like my car anymore, and I fear I will have trouble finding it in parking lots.

My Get-Rich-Quick-Scheme

Hearts have ruled for too long.

Green Grass and Pale Ale

It has finally reached that time of year where the ground in many places is completely covered in a wonderful snack for Steen, and he enjoys a little feast whenever I let him stop moving.

Brian and I thought we should spend some time enjoying some treats in celebration of the new season too, so when we both got off work at 2:00 on Friday, we pedaled over to our engagement spot in the park and participated in some hard-core lounging.

We sampled my new favorite beer, as well as a few others.

We enjoyed the warm sun and the green grass.

So much so, we decided to illustrate the view. Fascinatingly, we became better artists the more beer we drank!

Racking Them Up

One of the fun experiences in the aftermath of our wedding has been deciding what to spend our various and fairly numerous gift cards on. Last weekend I found myself poking around Bed, Bath and Beyond's website looking to spend some plastic. I had a few ideas for what we might want to buy, one of them being some sort of wine rack to help store all the pretty wine and port glasses we got for our wedding that don't really fit in our kitchen cupboards.

Though Bed, Bath and Beyond did not have a rack to suit our particular needs, I eventually discovered that they did have the various components we would need to construct our own rack. So, I ordered a plain oak serving tray and an under-the-counter glass hanger. Then Brian and I went to the hardware store and bought some hooks and some light-gauge chain. I filched a lovely discontinued oak corner sample from the trash can at work and sawed it in half so the pieces could serve as a place to anchor the hooks to the wall.

We encountered one hitch when we discovered the wall we had decided to mount the rack on actually concealed our house's brick chimney, so we had to go back to the hardware store for a masonry bit and cement screws. It took all of Brian's formidable husband-strength to get the holes where they needed to be, and the bit was pretty well munched by the sixth hole, but luckily six holes was all we needed!


The trivet hanging underneath the glasses is another wedding gift. It mostly makes the kitchen pretty, but it is also there for snatching off the wall and placing hot things upon in a pinch.