S.A.D.

As the days pass, pushing us closer to summer with no sign of warmer weather, the more we're feeling the effects of SAD. I follow blogs of women across the country, and seeing all their summer dresses and pool parties makes it even more difficult. It's also tough this time of year to work inside a basically window-less office. It's not sunny today, but on the days we do have sun, it's so hard to be stuck inside! It reminds me of a story I remember reading when I was a little girl (summary below). I suppose I can be thankful I don't live on Venus (though it sort of sounds familiar… maybe the author is from Seattle?). Any ideas on how to beat this slump??


All Summer in a Day:

The story is about a class of school children on Venus, which in this tale is a jungle world of constant torrential rainstorms, where the sun is only visible for two hours every seven years. Such an occurrence is imminent. 

One of the children, Margot, had moved to Venus from Earth five years before the story takes place, and she is the only one in her class to remember sunshine. She has become frail and miserable on Venus, and almost has a nervous breakdown from the anxiety of living with the relentless rain. 

Margot describes the sun as "a penny", or "like a fire in the stove". The other children refuse to believe her, claiming that she's lying and she doesn't remember. 

In her misery, Margot will not play with the other children, and they bully her for her separateness and refuse to believe her memories of the sun. As the sun's predicted appearance draws near, while the teacher is out of the classroom, William, the student who most often torments Margot for being a quiet outcast, convinces the other children to lock Margot in the closet. They ignore her cries and pleas; her beating against the closet door begging to be let out. 

As the sun is about to appear, the teacher arrives to take the class outside to enjoy their two hours of sunshine. In their astonishment and joy, they all forget about Margot. They run and play, skip jump and prance about, savoring every second of their newly found freedom. 

All at once, a girl feels a raindrop in her hand, and with the sad realization that the rain is returning, all the children start to cry. Thunder sounds, and the children run back inside. Suddenly, one of the children remembers Margot, still locked in the closet. They stand frozen with shame for what they have done, unable to "meet each other's glances." The precious sun has come and gone, leaving Margot still pale in gloom and darkness, not having seen the sun. The children walk slowly towards the closet, now silent, and let Margot out.

(Written by Ray Bradbury, originally published in 1954. Summary from Wikipedia.)

Kabul Olympics 2011

Bet you didn't know those were happening! I had the opportunity to do a really fast, really fun project for my friend Adam, and I wanted to share it with you — my four faithful followers. :) :)

Background: He's in Afghanistan with his employer TetraTech, partering with USAID on projects that will improve the lives of local Afghanis. So awesome. Read more about his experience here! Anywho, to help ease some of their "compound fever" (that's Afghani for cabin fever), they put on Kabul Olympics 2011, including sports such as volleyball, basketball, and ping pong. (I hope my extremely fast and vague description does this whole experience some kind of justice!!)

So Adam asked me to make them t-shirts!! So fun! Here's the design Adam and I liked best:

The team had me make some tweaks. It's still pretty sweet! :)

Here's everyone wearing their shirts!

And finally here's Adam killing it in volleyball! Go Adam go!!!!

I got this note today: "We had our first round of 5 of the Kabul Olympics today, full with opening ceremony and everything!!!  …It was an epic day of competition. The locals LOVED the t-shirts more than any of the sports." Made my freaking day. Thanks for letting me be a part of this, Adam. Carpe the diem! :)

Progress on the patio!

So we finally got all the grass dug out for the path and veggie gardens. I planted some groundcover that should spread to fill the area. We cleaned up a bit and hung lights. And last night we celebrated our progress with a bonfire and a glass of wine (or two!).

We still have some work to do and some clutter to take care of. Darrick is planning on finishing the second raised bed this week, and we'll finally be able to plant some herbs and veggies next weekend. Wahooooo! :)

Here are some picts of our work so far:

"Before" shots

So lovely!

Somewhere in the South of France, or just our backyard?

The veggie garden container, Day-Z snuggled up in her house, and my sweet little path!

Obsessed

My current obsession is a font called Brownstone by Ale Paul (uh, Ale is a pretty sweet name, by the way). Anywho, Brownstone is like a new crush for me. I seriously can't stop thinking about it. As I designer, I tend to appreciate some eye candy, but nothing ever haunts me this way. Look at those sexy curves! Look at those ligatures! I am in love.

:: swoon ::

(Second and third images from here.)

I think this is the end of a beautiful friendship.

A friendship with meat, that is. The thing is, I LOVE MEAT!! If I have to give it up, I'm going to hide pictures of it in my bedside drawer and stalk it on Facebook. But I feel like I am learning such disturbing things that I probably heard before, but chose not to hear. Like the way they treat chickens — even the cage free ones! And let me tell you, I love me some eggs. I don't want to give up eggs. But why can't they just not be mean to the chickens? Charge me more! I don't care! Stop being jerks to innocent little creatures! And then I just read in The Week that there's a new health scare with beef, pork, and poultry. Researchers tested meat in grocery stores across the country and 47% of the samples were contaminated with a bacteria that causes staff infection. Ew. But that's not even the worst part. The worst part is more than half of these little bacteria are immune to antibiotics!! It's because farmers feed healthy animals antibiotics to make them bigger and prevent disease in overcrowded pens. And because they're not willing to have smaller animals (less meat to sell = less profit) and NOT smoosh a ton of animals into one little pen (less meat to sell = less profit), we humans suddenly can't fight the disease that comes from their meat in the first place. Ugh! We're so selfish! And I say "we" because the truth of the matter is that I want to keep eating meat and I don't know if I can give it up and it's my demand that makes farmers act this way. (If there are animals in heaven, which I'm pretty sure there will be, I am going to have lots of apologizing to do. Lots and lots.)

On a positive note:

There are so many great resources for eating vegetarian/vegan!! Especially in Seattle — woo! We had lunch at Flying Apron on Friday and I had a delicious salad, pizza, and a peanut butter chocolate chip cookie! It was so good!! And it's all gluten-free, vegan, and organic!!! Awesome.

And also, thanks to No Small Dreams, I am now obsessed with this other blog, My New Roots. The girl who writes it is funny and adorable and her recipes look amazing! I just got the ingredients to make the the black quinoa corn muffins and the mint pea dip. Yummers! Here's to being good to our bodies and also to the world we're in charge of.