Adventurez

Today was a research day, and part of that (besides meetings with advisers and paperwork) is finding inspiration at the art museum, which I indubitably did. I sent a picture diary to one of my friends that was having a lame-o day to cheer her up, and it made me happy to share my experiences with her, and now hey! with you! oh blogs.

our fair city! (through a dirty L window)

lunch on the go

Art museum/Mich Ave

Foreshorten fail.

King Vulture. I am such a sucker for these porcelain birds from Munich.

My color palette with the texture of the wall. Proud outfit day.

I really enjoy how this art installation adds just a little bit and says so much to the pre-existing Art Institute ridiculously huge staircase. It doesn't distract, but adds. This is what I want to accomplish in my research project.

Not alone.

My brother bought me this cd Until We Have Faces by the band Red recently, and this song Not Alone just makes me feel safe. Has gotten me through the past two weeks, and a lot of self doubt. Which for me, comes all at once, but not often. Month of February was my month for that, apparently, but it's over, and onward.

Becoming buff

Well, not biking to work every day and not training for a triathlon for the past three months is about to come to an end! I'm starting to bike to work starting tomorrow- I decided March is a good reason to start biking. Hopefully the path won't be too icy, but I'm not very concerned. I look forward to the struggle.

Yesterday I went for a run along the lake in the morning, with slowly drifting snowflakes waltzing from the sky. The lake was a brown-blue color, and the sky a pearl gray-white. This contrasted with the warm neutrals of the city and the carpet of white snow on the path. The colors were muted, but absolutely beautiful. I heard once that some people naturally love the bare trees and dull colors of winter, and some just naturally don't- I am one of those that do. I don't need sun or saturated grass and sky to think the countryside is beautiful; I've always thought the barrenness of winter has a class of beauty all it's own.

I say this wearing bright teal pants and an orange t-shirt with bright orange nails. I do love color on my person.

I probably ran no more than 2 miles, but it was in 25 degree weather and with no stopping, once I put my mind to it. I stopped a lot on the way out, to gaze out into the lake, but ran back without stopping.

Today I went for a 30 min swim- 800 yards total. Followed by a 10 min soak in the hot tub, which I am convinced melted my vertebrae away, I was so relaxed. Right now I have the usual aches of exercising pretty hard irregularly, but also the satisfying exhaustion that comes when muscles have been used. I found a swim training website that takes you from 0 to 1 mile in 6 weeks with three days of swimming a week. I'm going to try to follow it, and run 3 days as well, with one day of rest. On top of biking 12 miles a day in 3 mile increments, I should be set to do my tri's this summer. I still need to decide which ones... right now I am leaning towards one in MS in September, one in Boston in August, and one in CA in late May. That's a lot, so we'll see!!

I'll probably throw in some ballet this summer too.

My bike is pimped out. Fenders, long-range lights, computer, new tune up every 6 months, two water bottle holders, new seat... I take care of it better than I take care of myself!

Refiner's fire.

It's really a good thing to, when encountered with the same situation again and again, to finally, FINALLY see some growth in yourself and see yourself change and handle it differently, at least this time. And truly trusting yourself that you are changing and growing, and stopping that errant behavior that defined your life so well not so long ago.

But this refiner's fire is hot and it burns and it is not a lesson easily learned.

But (again) I don't want to shrink from life. I don't want to reach out so far, so very far, and then shrink back at the last minute. This is not the way to live.

No matter what Hamlet says.

I wish to preach, not the doctrine of ignoble ease, but the doctrine of the strenuous life. -Teddy R

silly boy

My nephew is ridiculous. Just like his aunt. (and mother)

isolation cave

after a long, long, long day, a bed, a blue dresser, a cup of hot chocolate and fresh baked cookies are really all I can expect of myself at 9:15pm.

This deliciousness you see was made by me! I used a recipe from Smitten Kitchen- Blue cheese steak salad, and even made my own vinaigrette. (oil, grey poupon, honey, and worcestire sauce)

The top dish is garlic roasted mushrooms from Smitten Kitchen. I used whites because they were cheaper than browns but browns always taste better in my opinion. Also delicious, but need to be eaten right away- wasn't very good as leftovers.

Anyways, its been a rough week. I'm glad it's almost over.

sunday morning

This morning I was perusing blogs whilst still in bed, and came across this blog I had bookmarked ages ago. It has great recipes that look so delicious. I scrolled through and found one for scrambled eggs and goat cheese on toast. She said you could replace the goat cheese with cream cheese, if you wished. I had some left over hamburger buns and cream cheese that I needed to use, so I decided to make myself a modified version of this recipe. It was delicious. I just scrambled eggs, and toasted hamburger buns and smothered them in cream cheese, sprinkled feta cheese on top, and topped with my scrambled eggs and salt and pepper. I ate four.

I think I might pick out a few recipes to make this week, and start feeding myself well. I have also started budgeting more, so I am trying to work on keeping to a budget when it comes to food- I know I can save a lot of money here. And maybe if I cook nicer meals for myself I won't be so tempted to eat out all the time.

It's still snowing and its gorgeous outside and I only wish I had someone to go sledding with.

I signed up for the Shamrock Shuffle on April 10th through TNT again!! I need to fundraise 400 bucks so start donating! When my link is set up I'll post it here. I've dug up my old tri workouts and I'll try to start them this week too. I remember biking in this weather last year, so I think I'll drop off my bike to get fixed and start pedaling around once the snow melts. Organizing, I've been on such an organization binge for the past two weeks. The more I organize the more I see all that still needs to be organized. But let's be serious, this is just procrastination for my research. Ah yes.

Snowtorious B.I.G.

There are lots of names going around for this storm that I am watching safe and warm inside my apartment right now. My friend used the name Snowtorious B.I.G. and I liked that name the best. Thanks, Clarence! I just got home an hour ago, despite being let out of work at 2pm. Yes, it took me nearly 3 hours to get home.

Anyway, we have tomorrow off on account of the blizzard. I love snow! In conclusion, it looks scary outside.

Happy Birthday Pionek!!

Yesterday was one of my favorite friends from grad school's 25th Birthday!!! It was fun, always a good time with this girl. I hope she liked the gift I got her (a framed photo of myself. I mean what could be better?)!!

drain and a decision

I feel as though I've been going on empty for quite some time now- a trip home to sleep 14 hours three nights in a row may be in order, but I am trying to hold off as long as possible. The trouble with going on empty is that I resent my job more and more each day, when really, it is exactly what I wanted to do for the past three years. And that makes me quite sad that I can't enjoy it, but really, it is hard to enjoy anything when all one wants to do is curl into a ball and sleep for 14 hours.

I have absolutely enjoyed all the company I've been surrounded with lately, not the least, one of my college besties, Shannon. She has returned from 3 years in Munich, and included a visit to me in her winding trip home to Kansas City. It was splendid to spend this weekend with her.

I've found a new start with the new year to strive for more order in my life than I had last year. And by that I mean I am starting to push myself again, if that makes sense. Last year I just let go, most splendidly, but I set few goals and just focused on living, on surviving. I only really poured myself into the triathlon. But this year I am spurred to finish my research, if only to have to not pay tuition anymore. A couple thousand dollars here and there is quite a hard thing to swallow on my paltry artist's salary. I've also decided to go temporarily further into debt and purchase a car quite soon. I don't think I'll drive every day to work, especially in the summer when I will continue biking, but it will be necessary to visit my sister and parents and nearby friends. It really does make sense for my life.

In other news, I am contemplating running the Shamrock Shuffle race- an 8k- in April. I can do it with TNT, but I'll have to fundraise another 400 dollars. I'm pretty certain I can do this, but I haven't finished the leukemia cell paintings yet as I promised for my last fundraising prize. I have all the sketches roughed out and the frames bought and boxes saved for all 14 paintings, but not the actual painting finished yet. I feel like I need to get that done before I ask for more money. Then again, even if I fundraise half of the 400 I need to run the race with TNT, I should be able to swing the rest. It's for a good cause. But I also really have no spare time. I go back and forth on this. Give me your thoughts on what I should do!

That's all for today, I am going to bed even though it's only 9pm. Some days you just need to turn in early.

One last thing. Winter is such a lovely season.

1-11-11

Happy Binary Birthday to my Beautiful Sister!

I can't believe my leetle sister is 26!
When did this happen?
oy.


from that time when we ran through the fountains at night in Boston.

one slight thing more

I just wanted to share this: I went for a run this afternoon, an hour or two before the sun set, right before the time when the sun turns everything gold. I ran out to my spot on the lake, overlooking the lake and the city. The lake had frozen into circles of ice, which were crashing into each other with this most delightful, beautiful sound like frozen icicle chimes. I turned off my music, yanked off my ear warmer, and sat and listened, for a long while. And then, like usual, I started talking, out loud, to God. I laid everything out, with the ice chorus the backdrop to my prayers. I told Him my fears, my worries, my hopes, my concerns, and asked for direction and peace. Then I noticed the sky. Right where I was sitting the sky was split right down the middle- to my right, where the city was, it was overcast and the water and sky were this same sickly yellow-gray. To my left, the sun was setting and the sky was clear, and the water looked like what I call "winter lake" - all blue and pink and purple. Really, most beautiful. And I saw, where I sat, the cloud and clear sky met in the most curious manner. It was a direct line, splitting the sky in two, right above my perch. I said to God, ok God. I'd really rather have the beautiful scene to the left. It's one of your best works. But, if I need to take the right, and travel through an overcast, sickly gray, then ok. Whatever is in store, I am simply convinced God will still be there. But really, I'd prefer the beautiful sunset.

Then I sat and watched the ice chink with the gentle waves for quite some time, and was lulled to peace by their graceful ups and downs. The lake is good. God is good.

I ran home hard, and the icy air pierced my lungs.

the winter depths

I always say that winter in Chicago is about survival. No, I'm serious. Winter will try to kill you. If you are not ready, if you are not bundled appropriately, you will die.

This struggle, this sharp inhalation of freezing cold oxygen, the bland and dull colors, it all gives me space to think, clarity to move about. There isn't the glaring sun of summer, the rush of color that assaults the senses when everything is green and blue and alive. Instead there is a quiet, a simplicity on the streets, gray and more gray and some pale blue, and the occasional sparkling of snow. My clothing three layers thick, my body is removed from the dead world, and I turn inwards for inspiration and the color that nature has bled out. I find in winter I am most calm, most creative, most alive. I am clear, I am not confused by the heat of the sun, the dazzling colors of the leaves, or the thick air. The crisp air sharpens my senses, and I move forward.


All that being said, my mind returns to those oh so hot summer runs, where everything in me and on me was on fire, when my muscles screamed for rest and my body poured sweat. When I looked out over the turquoise lake and drank in color and heat for months. What I would give in these winter depths, for one day of that hot mind-befuddling summer, with air so thick with moisture I could barely breathe. For heat pouring into me and out of me, for wearing the slightest clothing and being so meshed with the weather and the air and the lake.

But here, in the winter, I create my own heat and my own internal environment. Beauty has a different meaning, and survival is difficult. I am removed from the world, and it is good.

This past week, the first of 2011, I've planned my workout schedule, and narrowed down my resolutions. Here is my schedule:

Mon-rest
Tues- pilates
Wed- ballet
Thurs- pilates
Fri- swim
Sat- stretch and strength and hip hop
Sun- run

I am focusing on my abs and core for this month. In February I'll start my triathlon training schedule.

My resolutions, which were the hardest to decide upon this year, mainly because I have so much less this year to struggle for than last, and I think I am in a place so happy with who I am, and my life, that I see little need for vast improvements. This is a good thing, hard won. But, as always, there is room for perfection:

I want to draw every day.
I want to read the Bible every day.
I want to finish my research.
I want to get a car.

I will carry with me from 2010 the desire to do triathlons, and am in the midst of planning my tri's for 2011. I also want to continue to work at guitar and French- but French needs to come with my acquiring of a car. So I can practice in the car, naturally. And, as always, as long as I can move, ballet. So, the aforementioned list has the four things that I will try my hardest to cross off this year.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand, man makes plans, and God laughs.

Boston post coming.

a picture because I am plumb out of words today.

sailing on the Charles, summer 2008

BOSTON BOUND in 10 days!!! Just found out today one of my Boston friends who has since moved to CA will be in Boston the same time I'm there! Get excited.

taking it easy (with Diddy)

The next two weekends/weeks are going to be madness surrounded by a ton of people, so I'm taking it easy this weekend, soaking up the loveliness of having no plans and no desire to get anything Accomplished. bliss.

I went to a ballet class at Jeoffrey Ballet last week, using a Groupon. It kicked my butt, and after inhaling spray paint fumes at work all day, my mind was shot, so I couldn't remember the simplest combinations. But the teacher was great, and corrected my posture until I got it right ("chin up, chin up, up up up up, yes! there it is!") which was excellent. The students were a lot more serious than Intrigue Dance, which was different. I hope to make it next week, but it all depends on how tired I am after working and commuting.

Work is exciting, models are coming in and getting closer to production, which is thrilling to no end for me. I can't wait to see one of my models online for sale. Yes, I am going to buy every single one.

Loving the cold weather, but actually am missing the warm weather more this winter than in the past. I think it's because I spent such a huge amount of time outside this past summer training. I miss being able to just dash to the lake, even after work, and enjoy the last sun over the lake. I am also missing my bike commute, my body is having a hard time adjusting to not exercising most days of the week. Life is hard, kids. My muscles are wasting away. I find myself taking the stairs whenever possible. Small compensation, but it's something.

I'm addicted to this song right now: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DkoeNLuMbcI

A cleansing swim

le Mediterranean Sea in Alghero, Italy. Hotel in the background is a story for another time... they have a red phone.

Went for a swim tonight- maybe 30 min? I was amazed that, even though I haven't swum since the tri in late Aug, it was like second nature to stretch my limbs and pull myself through the water. I could feel muscles that haven't been used in months contract and pull and flex in my back and arms and stomach. The pool at FFC is nice, but there's dirt in the corners and it's only 5 feet deep the entire way, which I feel makes it dirtier. Maybe because you can see the dirt at the bottom when it's shallower. I burned off a lot of energy and again, feel clearer and more calm than before I swam.

Sometimes I am astounded how quickly and radically physical exercise has become a large part of my life- a release of sorts for everything I don't and should express, but instead hold inside. Before this year yeah, I liked to run now and then, and biked to get around, but... now it's a refuge, something I go to work through problems in a physical way. Kind of like the potter's wheel or a lump of clay has always been in the past for me.

All good things, here. Good discoveries, these. I am thankful for a job that pays me enough that I can join such a swanky gym! (even if Oprah doesn't go there) (i know, sad)

a rough run

A doorway in a cathedral in Alghero, Italy

This week is the first week since starting full time at my job in Sept that I didn't bike 12 miles a day, mon-fri. As you can assume, I am bursting with energy and feel like my muscles have atrophied 50%. So, today, first thing out of bed I went for a run.

36 degrees and freezing rain, with a VERY strong wind from the southeast. ouch. I would have done better wearing one more layer, especially after a wave caught me and drenched the right side of my body. Things got very cold after that. But it was cleansing, and I got some things off my mind through the run, and I feel lighter, somehow.

The rain caused a fog to hang over the city, and the wind whipped the water into huge swells that splashed over the path. Even amidst all this, there were seagulls and ducks and loons flying about, catching fish, getting drenched and loving it. They taught me today that when storms and waves come, you don't have to be afraid. In fact, you can be defiant, and play about and find the beauty in the bad weather. Bad weather can be so cathartic.

I might go for a swim tonight too. Weekends are glorious.

Perfectly Strung

I am working on this hand model for work, and that's really all the more detail I can tell you. BUT in researching and sculpting the past 4 months hand tendons, ligaments, and bones... I have learned a few things.

Our hands are so, so complex. Each slight movement from a finger is controlled by a perfectly organized system that involves our whole arm. Each tendon is a cord with perfect balance and tension on our bones, working in companion with an antagonizing cord. Each flexor has an extensor, each extensor is harnessed by a tendinous sheath, each sheath encapsulates the bones and ligaments, all at an approximate distance from each other so that our fingers move fluidly and don't swing about wildly when we want to merely lift a finger.

We are perfectly strung. Each piece perfectly placed. Each bone perfectly formed. All strung together by fibers and cells which each have their specific purpose. If you could but peer beneath the skin for a split second, what you would see, what perfect physics and fluidity, what shiny sheath that encases your bone... the long tendons that run up your arm to the muscles that are nestled there. It's so beautiful, so astounding, that if you are blessed enough to possess two hands and 10 fingers, you should feel like the most perfect, most whole, most beautifully made creation. And if you don't, well I could wax romantic about nearly any part of the human body. I'm just really stuck on hands right now. Such amazing pieces of engineering that they are.

so perfectly strung.

so impossible to sculpt.... . . .. . .

From my private journal

4-10-07
And she realized, suddenly, nostalgically, with the words "sun- soaked fields" that what she missed so deeply- so deeply, even still, two years later, she missed the summers. She missed the fields, the smell of hay and growing things, missed seeing the gossamer threads weaving the grass like a layer of lace, the warmth of the dog and small guinea pig, the yard that had been my kingdom. The feel of earth, of dirt, warmed by the sun and loosened by the worms, the cool touch of the toads and warm berries from the garden.

This is what she longed for, even now, even two years later.

You have stolen my heart.

The kiss of sun and touch of the wind. I mourned here. I laughed here. I cried here, I smiled here, I languished here, here I became me. This deep deep summer is deep deep in my eyes. The lake, deep and known to me, the bluff, the dirt and rotting trees, rough twigs and slushy mud. The waves coming and coming and coming, and at night, receding, receding, until she stood on the sand in the middle.

This is my deep longing.

You have stolen my heart.



I'm in the process of moving to a different room in my apartment and I found a scrap of paper with this written on it. I hardly remember missing the Midwest so much when I was in Boston, but apparently adjusting to living in a city brought out sentiments like this one. I want to write it here so it be more accessible for me to read, and remember who I was in 2007, who I was before the city became such a large part of my life.

The sickness has my body. But not my soul.

I don't think I'd fare very well if I had a long, drawn out sickness where I wouldn't be able to leave my bed for a long period of time. After one day I start to get bored, and after two I get very down. After three I am in the depths of despair and after four I try to just ignore the sickness and pretend I'm all better. Actually, I do that on day 2.

On Tuesday night I had the most wonderful dinner with some old grad school friends, to celebrate two of theirs thesis defenses. Promptly two hours later I was clutching the toilet and the entire contents of my dinner were coming out both ends. This lasted for 12 hours, until there was nothing left to be excreted. Too much detail? Maybe. But, really, even while I was throwing up through my nose, I couldn't help but marvel at our amazing immune system.

It was pretty clear that I had food poisoning. Something that was SO HORRIBLE was residing in my stomach and had to get OUT immediately. And my body was going to do anything in it's power to get it OUT immediately, even awaken me at 4 in the morning so I could spew all over my floor. And then give me a fever the next day so I wouldn't do too much. But, it worked! I am feeling much stronger 48 hours later, and my body can add another antibody to it's roster.

Quite. Amazing.

My immune system just took control of my life and said, 'nope, heidi, we're going to take care of this one. You sit back and push the fluids.' And nothing I could do, no matter how worried i was about work or moving or a million things, could change the fact that my body was taking over.

I don't think I'll ever cease to be amazed by the human body!

That being said, enough already. I still have a rumbly stomach and I hardly ate all day, but darnnit, I am going to work tomorrow. I can't take any more episodes of Grey's Anatomy and I already watched all the Mary Tyler Moore reruns when I had mono, so enough. I have a hand model to finish.