Post Number Two: New Favorite tumblr

I love this tumblr blog i found.  It's called treehousestories .  It's beautiful and inspiring and has given me a lot of ideas.


On that site I found a picture of this retro typewriter.  I LOVE IT!!  I would write like crazzzzzzyyyyy on this thing!!  Like I said, this site is super inspiring!

Let's all promise to get in touch with our creative juices tonight!

Chelsea

Thank You Boyfriend

I started out having a terrrrribbllee day today.  But Trey came over and saved the it for me.  We baked peanut butter chocolate chip cookies and listened to awesome music and played chess (he won) and Scrabble (I won...which totally makes sense considering he is the science, logic brain and I am the english major/writer).  He really turned my day around with his great sense of humor and his unfailing childlike ability to be happy.  One of the reasons I love being with him is there isn't really such a thing as boredom...and if we start to get bored we just start doing something awesome.  Today we also made a list of stuff we need for our apartment, which we won't get until august, buuuuttt, we're pretty stoked!!!  The first item on the list is Madden 10...yup.  We've got our priorities in order.  Love it.


So, it's not that Trey and I don't have our issues because we're extremely different people...but at the same time, we're also the same person.  That doesn't make sense...or does.  Of course it does.  These things don't have to make sense. 

this is one of my favorite pictures of us.  how could i not like hanging with a

guy who likes to chill on top of a mountain?

in other news...i found this picture here and I LOVE IT.  This is me.  (wait: cute, graphic, and ourdoorsy?  yes, like i said.  that's me)  haha...i jest.

...annnnndd  I downloaded Zooey Deschanel music yesterday and have been listening A LOT.  I love her voice.  So perfect.  Her new indie band is called She and Him and its her and a guy mysteriously named M. Ward.  But regardless, if you want some soul tickling goodness don't pass her by.  Here are some great pics of them.

Hope your holidays are going beautifully.  I'm really enjoying mine.  Even got my Christmas shopping done already.

Chelsea

Too Great to Pass Up

So, I am miillleessss away from planing my own wedding and am usually not the girl who gazes at wedding dresses and plans for the future, but I stumbled across a blog called Once Wed and there were amazing pictures from a camping bachelorette party!  Seriously, this is a great idea.  And whenever/ if ever my wedding comes around I may steal it.

beach camping and a tepee!!!

great decor

tasty treats and wildflowers (no stuffy roses allowed)

indian themed party favors and just the right amount of girliness

Ahhh, well still plugging away at exam week.  I won't be finished until Monday.  So, beach camping sounds fantastic to me right now!!  Love it.

Have a great night ladies and gents,

Chelsea

Snow Please

Just finished an intense leg work out because I looked down and realized that during the summer my legs looked so fit.  Now they just look normal-ish.  Plus I want to be able to do a split by spring, so here comes lots of streeeetccchhhiiinnng.  I hope I don't pull anything.  If you know any more-awesome-than-usual stretches let me know.  I could use some spice in my routine.

This is me come spring...that's right, in addition to learning how to do a split

I'm also going to clone myself.  Watch Out!

photo credit: Getty Images (Cirque du Soleil)

I also just finished revising a short story I wrote called "Fox News, Ketchup, and a Christmas Tree".  I'm pretty proud of it and I just sent that and a poem I wrote called "Oranges" off to the literary magazine at College of Charleston.  I probably won't hear back until January or February, but exciting nonetheless.

I'm riding high on that feeling I get when I've actually completed a piece of fiction.  I start them all the time, but very rarely do they get the satisfaction of having an ending.  I'm thinking about posting my story in installments...let me know if ya'll would be interested in that!

Anyway, have a great night!  It was humid and warm in Charleston today so even though this sounds weird, I'm going to say, I miss the snow from my summer in the Cascades.  Ahhh, summer snow.

Backpacking on Copper Ridge, North Cascades National Park

June, 2009 (I'm on the foreground to the left)

Here's me (middle) and some backpacking buddies of mine from Europe

I miss the snow!!!!!!

Chelsa

Kite in the face

That's the kind of day I'm having.  I've been writing a paper all weekend.  Yikes.  One more week until finals are over and then I will have luxuriously yummy posts every day.

Until then I'll try to keep you entertained while also not detracting from the grade I get at the end of all this shenanigans.

Happy finaling...or whatever else your doing.

Chelsea

Paper Heart

This movie asks the difficult question: What is love??

Paper Heart was so interesting.  I loved the interviews with "everyday" sorts of people.  There are also inserts with cloth puppets that are awesome.  I was impressed because usually documentaries can't hold my attention to the end.  Charlyne Yi is adorable and captures the spirit of the film in a big way.  Plus Michael Cera is equally adorable, as always.  It's definitely worth the watch.


Visit the website too.  It has a MASH game!!!  I don't miss middle school at all, but who doesn't like to play MASH?  Here's the result from my mash game:

Crush: Johnny Depp
Job: big rig driver
Location: Vermont
Vehicle: motorcycle
Color: purple
# of Kids: 4

man, that's a fun game.  I can't wait to start my life as a big rig driver in Vermont...awessoommmeee.  haha.


Here are some fun stills from the movie:

On a different note, I have to confess I included Maggie Gyllenhaal in my MASH game.  Was I secretly hoping my imaginary life included Maggie?  Perhhaapps.

Yup.  She's my girl crush.

Anywho,  have a great night...it's raining, but that doesn't mean going outside wouldn't be fun : )

Chelsea

I want to be a Nonwriter when I grow up

Paul Allen

I have gone to Paul Allen's class twice a week for the past three months.  Today was the last class of the semester, and unfortunately, the first time I've truly appreciated being under the tutelage of Paul Allen.

 What brought that change?  An essay he handed out to us as we left called "Else and Other: A Nonwriter Addresses the Nonwriters at a Writers' Conference."

Here's  the book Paul's essay is printed in

It's an essay/speech he wrote for the 1995 Charleston Writers' Conference and it is brilliant.  Brilliant.  He begins with the line:

All my life I wanted to be somewhere else.

I think anyone who aspires to be a writer can empathize with this.  Writers are famous for being malcontents.  W are great at imagining lives bigger, grander, more beautiful than the one we are living.  I've heard over and over that being a writer, an artist of any kind, is a personal choice, a sacrifice that takes extreme devotion to the craft at the cost of destroying close relationships and becoming isolated from those that once loved you.
I've thought about this so many times wondering what I would do if I had to choose between my boyfriend and family, or my writing.  I could never give up on writing.  I love it.  I also love Trey and I want to believe that my love for writing does not negate the possibility of a happy marriage and close family.  Trust me, I've been told I'd have to choose.

Paul's essay changed my perspective entirely.  He calls himself a "nonwriter" because he doesn't want to define himself as any one thing.  He writes of a shift saying

...all my nouns (husband, poet, teacher) become verbs.  I teach.  I write some poems.  I fix a thing or two around the house.  I'm not the great I Am, but I am my I am (as in Frost's "Iota Subscript), and I accept that none of these activities is who I am.  And if any one of them (or all) had to be consciously and willfully sacrificed...so be it.  Each brings joy only if I don't ask it to, only if I see it as a minor activity under a larger peace.

A larger peace.  Hmmmm.  The idea of turning your nouns into verbs really stuck with me, so I wrote my own list of examples:

• I am not a writer, but I'm currently writing.
• I am not a girfriend, but when I'm with Trey, you could say I'm girlfriending.
• I am not a student, but when I have to do work or go to class, I am studenting.
• I am not a daughter, but when I'm talking to my Mom and Dad, I'm daughtering.

...and the list could go on and on with every label we give ourselves.  I love the idea that I can be everything...certainly not simultaneously, because that defeats the purpose of giving your attention to things individually.  Anyway, I was so inspired by Paul's essay.  I am encouraged and re-motivated to pursue every single one of my interests.

I'll close with a quote by Walt Whitman that Paul includes in his essay:

From this hour I ordain myself loos'd of limits and imaginary lines.

Mmmm.  I love it.  I hope this can inspire my fellow artists, or really just anyone.
I really appreciate you sticking with this long post...Thanks!

Chelsea

This is what a semester of sculpture looks like

Well, the semester is wrapping up and I've finally brought all of my projects home, so I thought I'd share them with you!  This was my first time taking a sculpture class and I really loved it.  It was great stress relief and I got to try out quite a few creative processes.

Park Bench with Tree growing through it

wire, yarn, tulle, nylon

Project 2: abstract

chicken wire, burlap, plaster, tulle, buttons

Project 3: Balloon project (front)

We inflated balloons and taped them to the inside of a box then filled the box with plaster and let

it set.  After the plaster set we had to carve away the square, dealing with the negative

space where the balloons were as we got to them.  This project was definitely my favorite!

Here's the back.  I stained the plaster with tea bags (that's the brown) and did an acrylic paint wash for the inside spaces.  Some of the holes were drilled and some were balloon spaces.

Well, I hope you enjoyed!  I love getting my creative juices going!

Chelsea