Crazy Sexy Cancer

This lady to my left, Kris Carr, is incredible. She has cancer and made a movie about how she is kicking it in the ass and is embracing her life to the fullest. How cool! It's called Crazy Sexy Cancer and it debuts on TLC tomorrow night. Set your DVRs!

I love it when someone takes a bad thing and makes a good thing out of it. When I first heard the name of the movie, I thought I was hearing things. Most people wouldn't associate cancer with anything fun and sexy. Cancer sucks, right? It's not a fun thing. I'm one who fantasizes about a world where illness and death is not such an uncomfortable topic, so I ran to my computer and googled these three words. When I learned about Crazy Sexy Cancer I was refreshed. What a strong girl! By putting herself out there in such a positive way, she is helping cancer, and all of it's associated suckiness, to be just a little more approachable. Oh thank goodness.

I am so inspired. Seriously. The quality of shows on cable TV is amazing. And no I'm not serious about that.

Fun Design Job

I'm stoked to share with you that I was hired to do some graphic design work for an absolutely fabulous non-profit in town called Girls, Inc. They are a national organization completely devoted to empowering girls. Their motto is "Inspiring all Girls to be Strong, Smart, and Bold."

My job is to design marketing materials for girls ages 8-21, inspiring them to join Girls, Inc. and become members. My designs are naturally youthful and fun, so I am a good fit for the task. But I realized recently that I have no idea what is cool to girls these days! I know what I would want for them to think is cool, but that wouldn't necessarily make it appeal to the 13-year-old of 2007. Any ideas? I'm challenging myself to think outside the box of flowers, hearts, and swirls, and give this some real substance. This project will be a lot of fun.

I'm honored to be on board with Girls, Inc. and I wanted to share my news and also bring the organization to your awareness. I'm also using this as an excuse to share the link to my online design portfolio, which I'm quite proud of. Take a peak at it. (Click to enlarge an image.)

Good Stuff

My friend Sarette is so crafty. Look at these pants she sewed for herself!

Today I discovered the most fabulous new store in Portland that is only a bicycle spin away from my house. It's called Twisted and is has yarn, crafts, classes, and tea. Yet another reason why I love this city! Not only does Twisted have a weekly movie night, where you do the craft of your choice with other fun ladies (or strong men), but the two girls who just opened it are really nice. I'm hoping they decide to do some hiring soon.

Which reminds me that the other day, while shopping with Sarette, I discovered another store which is equally blogworthy. Saint Cupcake is a fun little boutique on Belmont Avenue. It's full of handmade things that you don't need at all, but you just want so badly. It's a great store to waste time in. And just when you thought this store couldn't be more scrumptious, at the back of the store, you'll find that you're actually shopping in a cheerful little cupcake shop! What's more fun than that?

Portland has a huge craft and DIY (do it yourself) scene and it is about half of the reason why I live here. I'll tell you more about that another day.

Movin' & Groovin'

Last weekend was a whirlwind! Not only did we transition from Seattle to Portland, but I personally shuffled from one music festival to another. The craziness started last week, when we packed up our stuff into a U-haul in Seattle, drove down, and unpacked it into our new garage. Then I drove out to the Gorge for the Stevenson Bluegrass Festival and played a dance set with Deadwood Revival on Friday night. (Yes, it was called a "dance set". And boy did they dance, thank the Lord.) Then, On Saturday I drove out to Hornings Hideout and met up with the Ziegman for the big String Cheese Incident weekend. In the meantime, we homelessly stored all of our stuff in our new garage. The move was chaotic, but the whole weekend was planned out and worked seamlessly!


String Cheese is a big jam band that puts on a huge camping festival every summer on beautiful grounds outside of Portland with a lake, a creek, and lots of forest. The stage area is a huge natural bowl-shape ampitheater that is perfect for thousands of people. Many people feel very at home at Hornings Hideout.


The weekend is not only about the band, but you see lots of costumes, dancing, workshops, and crazy circus-like hoopla. On Saturday night, they cleared out floor and put on a big theatrical show while the band jammed in the back. We were at the front of the crowd for this. I loved it! But also I was glad that we did not all go up in flames.


While frolicking in silliness with our friends Amy & Sean, we passed by a beautiful collage made with scrapes of random fabric pieces and glue gun. In the collage are images of flowers, water, animals, hills, etc. This is only part of it to show the detail. In my already blissful state, I thought this was pure luscious eye candy. Seeing this now makes me want to stop this unpacking nonsense and start crafting NOW!


I mean, could this be any more CUTE???


We are very lucky in that we are part of a huge community of friends in Portland called "The Visitors". Here is the group photo from the weekend. I, of course, was lost in my own world hula hooping at the top of the hill and missed the whole photo. But Zieg made it. He is the big guy in the lower left side with the scarf on his head.

Unpacking is More Fun Than Packing!

Happy Birthday, Sis!

Today is my sister Kate's birthday. She lives in Buffalo, NY, which in my opinion is way too far away. I wish she lived closer. Kate has a blog called Oh for Fun! named after a whimsical expression that our mother says. :) It was her blogging life that made me start a blog. Thanks Kate! This is fun!

Kate is always good for a laugh and, as her blog states, her writing is often over the top with fun. I wish I was as funny as her. Here is my recent favorite Oh For Fun! entry.

Kate, happy birthday! I miss you! Isn't about time for another audition in Seattle or Oregon?

Moving Along

One of my best friends, Catie P, moved away this week. Catie and I were housemates in Portland and when she left in 2003 to travel, I wasn't sure if I'd see her again. But, she landed back at our house with the same glowing light and it was like nothing had changed. Then she left to travel some more. Again, she surprised me and came back! But this time, I don't think Catie is coming back. She is going to poke around the country for a bit, visit people, and eventually end up in Asheville, NC where her family is. I've had lots of fun times and long talks about life with her. Catie, my girl, I will miss you! You are such a good friend!

Although I'm super sad that she is so far away, I hear there is great music in Asheville and I plan to visit.

While Catie is moving from Portland, I am moving back to Portland next week. Funny how that works out.

Hot Music

High Sierra Music Festival was long and hot, but fun and worth the heat and the lack of sleep. I worked on the ambiance crew which means decorating the stages and grounds of the fest. Very fun! For a jungle themed late-night stage hall, I did a lot of cutting, pasting, laminating, and hanging huge paper flowers. Also, with my friends Jen and Angela from the bay area, we made a 10-ft. tall waterfall out of pretty translucent paper and lights. I also spent a few late night hours stringing white lights from tree to tree in a grassy meadow with my good friend Lindsey. Since it is so hot at High Sierra (over 100 degress every day), the coolness of the night is invigorating.

The ambiance crew is really fun in an unorganized way.... there's a huge barn of supplies and decorations and for two days, we just tore through it and went to town! I wish I had more pictures of this. I did not hang the "I Feel Good" that you see above, but it captured how I felt at that moment.


Along with 4 stages of continuous music, there are a lot of crazy sights at High Sierra. These festival-goers are my favorite, and god I wish I was as cool as them. At night, their seahorses light up beautifully and it's fun to watch them cruise around.


There were probably 40 or so bands at High Sierra and I had my eye on the ones with fiddle. My favorite set of the weekend was Chris Thile (mandolin, formerly of Nickel Creek) and the How to Grow a Band, which I stood at front and center. They have great pickers and also a great name and I like their deisgn. At the end of the set, Darol Anger was invited to join, so he spontaneously ran to his campsite and hopped up on stage with his violin. Classic. I love that.

One of my favorite new bands is the Ryan Montbleau Band, a bluesy little troupe from around Boston. They have a dude who plays viola.

Brett Dennen never disappoints, with his soulful, fun-loving, crowd-rowsing songs.


It was really fun to see Raina Rose (above with guitar), a Portland singer who is full of positive light. I listened to her CD in my car repeatedly after High Sierra, passing through Portland for a couple days.

Here is a picture of ThaMuseMeant, a great band formerly from of Portland. The great Enion Pelta plays the 5-string violin, which I got to play at her camp. It's like a violin and viola in one. Her husband, Dave, plays a mean mandolin. I don't think you can see it in this picture, but can anyone tell me why, oh why, does he have a chinrest on his mandolin??

Believe it or not, the girl in this picture above is not me. But as I stood there trying to get a good picture of the band, I was sort of wondering if I was looking at the back of myself, with pigtails, a spaghetti strap tank, sunglasses, and a barrell clasp necklace, so I captured her in there with the band because I just liked her.

On the last night of the festival, I was well-rested and ready to GO BIG. But unfortunately, at 6PM I had one bite from a plate of unlabeled pot cookies. It was so strong that it put me to bed just as the night was starting to come alive. I was mad that it wasn't labeled! Apparently this was so it wouldn't be noticed by festival police, but my feelings are that friend's well-beings should come first and that plate should not have been innocently sitting there going "Eat me!" But oh well. Even though my fun night was squelched, it kind of makes a funny story and it was a learning experience. Beware of festival baked goods!

Listen to this craziness... Ziegy went down to High Sierra a day later than I did and ended up helping out a friend of a friend named Hannah, giving her a ride down from Seattle. They had never met. On the way, they stopped in Portland and were hanging out at Hannah's friend Emily's house. It wasn't until then that they realized that Hannah is also my old friend from Portland and the girl whose house they were at, Emily, is my old roommate of 2 years. Isn't that a fabulous connection? I screamed when I heard. I loved when people come together like that! And I loved getting to see Hannah at the fest.

Unfortunately, Ziegy's VW van did not make all the way to High Sierra and Ziegy, Hannah, Steve, and Stacey had to rent a van after it stalled in the mountains of northern California. So we rode back home in a luxury mini-van. It made for a good adventure for all and it's all covered under warranty. We kept on smiling.

Skirts and Stuff

Tomorrow we are heading to California for the fun and outrageous High Sierra Music Festival. It means I finally get to flaunt this cute skirt I sewed a while ago.


The skirt is fitted and stretchy. It's made out of spandex. The ladies at the sewing store tried to tell me that it wasn't going to work to sew on the red bobble garland at the bottom because it doesn't stretch (even if I stretched the spandex). Guess what. It worked! It's stretches wonderfully!


These are little hair ties. They're just strips of spandex and decorative yarn and they're about six inches long.


Actually, I've kind of gone crazy the past few days. Here's another skirt I made. The little blue guys hanging down are more spandex. I like the way that they hang straight and don't wrinkle.

One thing I learned: Spandex + hot glue gun = happiness and fun

I also just finished sewing the curtains for our VW bus that is going down to High Sierra. We'll be gone until next Monday night. Back with a lot of musical and creative inspiration of course.

The Full Picture

It's not very often that a picture of a band is taken in which no one's face is covered by something and everyone is smiling. But, here is the Deadwood Revival opening set (Jason, Bryan, Kim, and me) from last Tuesday at the Tractor Tavern in Seattle. Bryan, the bass player for Hot Buttered Rum played the entire set with us, learning some of the tunes on the fly, just cause he's a rockstar like that.

After the the Seattle shows, I drove up to Vancouver, BC over the weekend to see another Hot Buttered Rum show. It was a much needed personal adventure. I had the full Canada experience by having my whole car searched at the border, catching the Sky Train to go shopping downtown, and then sleeping at a marginally-comfortable hostel. The show, of course, was a really fun! I chose not to sit in with the band in order to not disrupt the flow of just dancing and smiling. I united with some random new and old friends. I slipped away to the restroom at one point, and when I returned, this picture was on my camera.

Clockwise from left is Ben, who is Zac (the mandolin player)'s cousin and who sat in with them on guitar, Andy, the band's bus driver, and John and Michelle, Butter friends who live in Bellingham, WA.

I go through phases, but I'm definetely stuck in the Butter dish right now. Next up, I'll see them next weekend again at High Sierra music festival, which we are leaving for this weekend.