I've been meaning to take advantage of the Chrysler Museum's extended Wednesday hours for a while. Tonight J. & I were getting ready for dinner, and I turned to him and said, "Hey, want to go see some art?" He was into the idea, so we grabbed the baby (already in her jammies) and drove downtown to do just that.

There was one exhibit I especially wanted to see, by Pinaree Sanpitak. Basically, it involved a bare room full of these pobby silk shapes inspired by Buddhist stupas. WITH a hidden surprise...when you got close to the stupas, or touched them in any way, they began to vibrate and make a sort of chiming/buzzing/moaning sound.

If you weren't expecting it, it could be a little scary.

The second exhibit we saw was "Charlotte's Web" by Charlotte Potter, a series of beautiful cameos (each one representing one of the artist's 864 Facebook friends) linked together by delicate chain. It was intricate and sly and humorous and I have a renewed love for cameos, now. 

I think we were the only ones in the museum (besides the staff), which was a really subversive and special feeling -- as though all of these amazing objects and paintings had been laid out just for us. We drifted through rooms of ancient pottery, passed walls of antique kimonos with outstretched arms, and knelt down to examine an Egyptian sarcophagus...  I could have spent hours pouring over everything but we were creeping up on bedtime and so we left. But not without planning to come back very soon. 

So that's the story of how a spur of the moment whim became one of my favorite outings ever.  Isn't it nice how that works?
 


FYI: Next Wednesday is Halloween, and the Chrysler is open until 9 PM again -- if you're in the area, you should stop by to see the staff dress up in costumes representing their favorite works of art in the museum! We would be there except we already have plans...somebody please go and tell me how awesome it was?

A week or so ago, I grabbed a canister of foam stickers at the craft store and I have been semi-regretting it ever since. The stickers have a Noah's Ark theme, and these animal couples seem to be multiplying and being fruitful all over my house. There are at least 50% more now than were in the can when I bought them.

I thought we'd better find a way to use them up as quickly as possible. So we broke out the stamp pads yesterday and experimented and here's what we came up with.

Project #1: Foam sticker stamps. This one was super easy. Peel the back off the foam sticker, affix to wood block ("borrowed" from child's block box), et voila.


Project #2: Rolling pin printing. Also super easy. Arrange the foam stickers on the rolling pin in a pattern you like, coat stickers with stamp pad or paint, and roll on out on a big sheet of paper.



(We used kangaroo stamps. We have a thing for kangaroos in our house. If you have seen the movie Chocolat, you will know why. We also threw in a few polka dots for good measure because we have a thing for them, too.)
Both projects turned out pretty well and have given me tons of ideas for handmade Christmas presents this year. I would love to get some fabric paint and try to do some personalized T-shirts and tote bags, maybe a scarf or two. At the very least I am excited (YES, LEGITIMATELY EXCITED) to add to my stamp collection. I love stamps but it's time-consuming to make your own and the ready-made ones can be a little pricey. The foam stamps come in all sorts of holiday assortments and are pretty cheap, about $4 for 50 billion. You can't beat that for a deal.

What do you do with your foam stickers? Seriously, I could use the ideas. Because we still have about 49 billion left.


Wednesday links:

• The Scariest Little Corner of the World: "As I rounded the corner a man cried out: “Watch this guy! Get away from him! Watch out!” It was the second time in less than a week I was mistaken for a suicide attacker — a uniquely unpleasant sensation that I had not experienced anywhere else in Afghanistan."
• 19 Things You Should Stop Doing in Your 20s (I'm 30 and still working on most of these). 
• I try to shy away from politics in my online life, but I found this video of women singing along to Leslie Gore's "You Don't Own Me" in support of President Obama so inspiring that I had to make an exception. If you're voting for the other guy, you might want to skip this one. :)
• Movie Cat posters to make you smile. 

I feel like the Pagoda is one of the best-kept secrets in Norfolk, which is strange because it's a big honkin' pagoda right in the middle of downtown. Hard to miss. But nobody seems to have heard about it. It's so well-kept that even I forgot about it until we stumbled upon it last Friday night on our way to dinner, and I used to cut class and eat lunch there visit it after school almost on a weekly basis when I was at Maury.

Finding it again was like a breath of fresh air. The garden surrounding the Pagoda is such a restful place. There are koi ponds and fountains and stone gates, water gardens and bamboo, all ringed with willow trees and set at the edge of Freemason Harbor.  We explored every single inch of the one-acre garden and enjoyed every minute.

It was especially fun to sit and people watch -- this one lady sat by a pillar and did the most meticulously beautiful beadwork the whole time we were there (can you see her special magnifying glasses in this pic?) I could have watched her all day.


Baby Anne and I played peekaboo in the willow trees for a good long while. Add in a walk along the pier and a sushi dinner at Kotobuki and you've got pretty much the perfect Friday evening.

Have you visited the Pagoda? Did you know anything about its history before you went?

The past few weeks have ended up being more than a little stressful around these parts. I have been feeling under the weather for a while, J.'s been out of town, and all of a sudden we found ourselves with too many obligations to go around and ended up having to jettison some of them, which never feels good.

The past few days I've tried to stick close to home as much as possible, to try and get back on my feet. And one of the nice things about doing that is there's more time for at-home fun. Yesterday, I took out some scraps of felt from my fabric bag and whipped up a felt board and some outfits for Lady Kitty and Anouk and I have been enjoying her ever since. Isn't she chic?

Watch those ta-tas, Miss Kitty! You're perilously close to busting out.

Every Halloween, my Girl Scout troop would go to the graveyard (right next to our camp! which made for some pretty interesting camping trips) and make gravestone rubbings. It might seem like a weirdly morbid thing to do with a lot of little kids, because of the inevitable conversations that will come up about death and all that. But surprisingly, all of my memories of the activity are happy ones. So much so that as a grown-up, I've kept up the practice. Whenever I visit the grave of a far-flung ancestor or when I'm on vacation and visiting a churchyard, I make sure to pack some paper and crayons in my bag to bring back a truly one-of-a-kind souvenir. It could be because I'm a history and genealogy buff. It could be that I'm overly sentimental. It could be because I'm a little weird. I don't know. I do know that grave rubbing is a great activity for little hands: it doesn't require much finesse, the results are always striking, and it offers a great excuse to acquaint little ones with family lore.

This past weekend I visited the family plot at St. Mary's and made a rubbing of a stone of a relative who died as a child. I've always had a soft spot for her, partly because nobody alive really remembers who she belonged to, and partly because she shares my name. On my last trip to the cemetery, I'd noticed that her grave was getting a little faded and worn, and I wanted to find a way to preserve it before it faded too much. Especially the beautiful Arabic writing at the bottom!

Some tips for making a grave rubbing of your own:

• Use medium weight paper: too thin will tear, too thick won't leave a good impression. I use an 18x24" sketchpad, with 50 lb. paper density.
• Bring a roll of painter's tape -- it's the best for securing the paper to the stone (Scotch tape is too flimsy and duct tape can leave a nasty residue). 
• A lot of people like to use pastels, but I think they're really messy and prefer to use a thick "My first crayon"-style black Crayola (don't go too cheap with the brand of crayon you use -- sometimes they don't cover very well). The thin crayons work well for touch ups after you've brought your rubbing home. 
• St. Paul's and Calvary Cemetery have some of the most interesting and historical gravestones in the area, but they're pretty old and can be covered in dirt and moss. An old toothbrush helps to loosen the grime so you can get a clearer rubbing.  

The last time I was at the art store, I checked out the clearance aisle and found that stamp pads were going for $0.30 a piece! So of course I had to buy every single one of them, I can't resist a bargain like that. I didn't know when I was throwing them into our basket exactly what we would do with thirteen stamp pads in assorted colors but I knew I would think of something.

On our walk this afternoon, Anouk and I gathered up little bits and pieces that we thought might make good stamps. Note: while pinecones were collected and used, the results ended up being pretty underwhelming. I am still going to call this exercise pinecone printing, though, because I like the alliteration. It sounds a little bit more whimsical than "pine straw printing" (fwiw, pine straw worked quite well).

Anouk was especially fascinated with the acorns that we rolled around the edges to make borders for our designs. She called them little balls. And then crammed about five of them in her cheeks like a squirrel, which put a nice cap on our pinecone printing experience for the day. Luckily, we are well-stocked for next time.

Have you ever used found objects as stamps? What did you find made the best designs?

from the road past the ash for light in the study windows

upstairs and down? Go climb the black maple as first

in new sneakers you walked forty feet in air

and saw the life to come. Don't forget the cats.

Sit down for a minute under the tallest birch. Look up

at the clouds reflected in the red barn's twisted window.

Lean on the wall. Hear our voices as at first

they shook the plaster, laughed, then burned in the dry air

like a wooden house. I imagine you won't forget the cats.

-F.D. Reeve

Today is the first truly cold morning of the year for us and it's hinting deliciously at all sorts of shivery days to come. As soon as I woke up this morning, I knew exactly what was on the agenda for today for me and Baby Anne: socks and sweaters over pajamas and big steamy cups of hot chocolate. And in order to truly enjoy the hot chocolate experience, we need our favorite homemade marshmallows to go with it, don't we?

Maple Cinnamon Marshmallows (adapted from this recipe)

1 cup water
1 cup pure maple syrup
3 tablespoons gelatin
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/4 teaspoon salt
Dash cinnamon

Grease a 9x9 baking dish and line with parchment paper in both directions. Combine 1/2 cup water with gelatin in the bowl of a stand mixer and let soften. Combine the other 1/2 cup water with maple syrup, vanilla, and salt in a saucepan over medium-high heat and bring to a boil. When the temperature of the mixture reaches 240 degrees (soft ball stage) according to a candy thermometer, remove from heat.

Turn the mixer on medium and pour the maple syrup mixture into the bowl with the gelatin and water. Beat for about 10-12 minutes, until it turns thick, white, and fluffy (it will look a lot like marshmallow fluff).

Turn the marshmallow mixture into the baking dish, and apply another sheet of parchment paper to the top. When the mixture is set (we like to leave it overnight), peel off the top layer of parchment paper and use the bottom layer "handles" to lift the giant 9x9 marshmallow from the dish onto a cutting board. NOTE: you will be tempted to eat the giant marshmallow right then and there. Resist this urge and cut it up into smaller, less giant marshmallow pieces (You can butter your knife to make this easier).

Sprinkle marshmallow tops with cinnamon. Voila! You have the perfect homemade, fall-festive (and Paleo) marshmallows, perfect for these hot-chocolate days ahead.


Monday links:

• YA author Lois Lowry shares the secret to her success: "I realized that day that I could talk to kids or I could talk to adults, but not to both: And so I chose the kids."
• What makes for the most beautiful apples? "The blush of a cheek? Its whiteness? Or possibly its muscular size?"
• Incredible photographs of hermit crabs from the University of Otango's Glassblowing Unit. 
• Five new ways to cook with pumpkin. And for good measure: Pumpkin cinnamon rolls.

Anouk and I met up with our Aunt C. today with a very important mission: to score some pumpkins for our front stoops (and maybe some pumpkin-flavored baked goods, too). We consulted with Google and set off...and ended up in a kind of depressing church parking lot pumpkin patch. Waaa-waah. Not exactly the festive seasonal ambience we were looking for. But did we let this stop us? No! We continued on until we found Bergey's Breadbasket and all our perseverance paid off.

Bergey's is a wonderful, family-run trifecta of fall amazingness. There's a deli and bakery featuring a host of goodies, including homemade pumpkin ice cream! There's a pick-your-own pumpkin patch. And there's a freaking awesome petting zoo, too. The animals are tethered, so you can really experience them, as evinced by several pictures I have on my camera of Anouk running frantically away from a seriously friendly pair of sheep. (The petting zoo is run by donations, so make sure you bring a few dollars to slip into the box when you visit.)

I think we explored every bit of the farm while we were there, from the chicken coop to the enthralling handcrafted wooden marble slides in the restaurant area. She was very determined to pick herself a pumpkin -- I turned around a few times and found her lugging pumpkins almost the size of her little body across the field to me. And it kind of blew her mind to be able to stand nose-to-nose with a real-life "moo." It's a good thing we've been brushing up on our animal sounds, because they got a real workout today.

(It should be noted that Bergey's also features a pretty impressive corn maze this time of year. We missed seeing it today because we went in the early afternoon and it's only open from 4-7 PM. So keep that in mind when planning your trip. This year's maze is football-themed, and from the looks of it, worth a visit, so we plan on going back for it later this month.)

After we had explored everything very very thoroughly, we had lunch at the restaurant and left with enough pumpkins and pumpkin goodies to supply a festive fall army.

Mission accomplished.

P.S.: I love Aunt C.'s choice of farm footwear. This lady knows how to petting zoo in style.