Paintings For Sale

This is me scrambling a bit as I try to lighten my load before leaving Texas.

My final project for my drawing class was these three paintings that I did in acrylic paint on 40 in. x 15 in. masonite boards. They were very enjoyable to do, from the beginning stages of hunting around this house I've been staying in and capturing cropped snapshots of it. The problem is, I really don't want to pay to have them mailed to my mom's garage.







So, if you are at all interested and live around here, please let me know...and if you don't live around here but would like one, or two, or three, we can simply add the shipping cost onto the total. They are relatively light and painted black along the sides of their frames, so they are ready to be hung.

That's all for now. I have packing to do!

Looking a Bit Closer

If it wasn't one o'clock in the morning, this would be a longer post. And if I had a fancier camera, I'd have a photo of the stars. Even better, stars slightly blurred from moving while on a bicycle. That's how they looked as I biked home from sweet time spent with friends tonight.

Instead, I have the simple photo, above, that I took from a detail within "our" house (my friend and I are house sitting, remember?). While simple, it also seems to be a beautiful highlight of the details to be found in Abilene, if I just take the time to look a bit closer.

Friends and Chocolate

It is a widely known fact that I did not move back to Abilene two years ago for the scenery. It wasn't the art department that wooed me either. It was a certain few relationships that I just had a hunch needed more time and investment because they were worth at least that.

Tonight, standing and then eventually sitting around the kitchen of this house that has brought four somewhat random girls together, I loved the reminder that there are relationships I'm taking with me that I could have never predicted.





For a simple belated birthday celebration for one of my house mates, I made these cupcakes tonight. My other house mate and I surprised the birthday girl with a single candle stuck in the middle of one and a rather sloppily harmonized rendition of "Happy Birthday".

The recipe was excellent, and it was a lot of fun to do some baking and shoot photos at a leisurely pace along the way as I haven't been able to do that for a while. However, I will comment that if you decide to go the cupcake route with this recipe, definitely use muffin tin liners. The cake's crumb is wonderfully tender and moist but makes for some rough looking cupcake bottoms without them. Also, it called for a hefty amount of baking soda, and I'm a bit skeptical that the full amount is necessary. I feel like it contributed a slightly tinny flavor, though my friends didn't notice.

Oh, and disregard my runny ganache. I simply didn't have heavy whipping cream, so I subbed half & half and barely had time to bring it to room temperature before using. The flavor worked out just fine, though the presentation was less impressive than PaperSeed's.

Go on over to her blog if you're interested in the recipe:
Chocolate Buttermilk Layer Cake

And More to Come

While I didn't take these pictures today, I did manage to finally get them scanned into the computer this afternoon.

They remind me so much of Texas. Just look at that grass-less yard! But, because I'm challenging myself to think positively about this place in my remaining time (and it's refreshingly not that hard), I want to highlight more than the brown color of the ground.

First of all, these pictures are polaroids, which automatically earn some affection in my heart, and they were taken in this lovely family's backyard. I was experimenting with polaroid art (in this case, simply drawing on top of the film as it developed), and my uncle helped in the exploration as my mom watched, on one of her rare visits to Texas. The collaborative effort, bright colors, and remembrance of children at play make these photographs worth posting here tonight as I sit in a large house under and even larger star-sprinkled Texas sky.

I will hold fast to the memories I've formed in this state.

In Order to Remember

As I wrap up my time in Abilene, I want to highlight the more beautiful things of this place because often times it's easier for me to point out the ugly, or at least the areas of lacking.

To begin with:



This is in the bathroom I have adopted as my own while housesitting with a friend for the past month. The window on the long wall of the shower floods light into the room all day long, and in the mornings the combination of sunlight, white tile, and aqua wall paint makes me oh so happy...or at least it helps a bit in those early a.m. hours when I would prefer to still be in bed.

Something New

Those of you who read One Hungry Soul because you know me personally may be interested to know that I started a new blog about a week ago. It is to chronicle the next phase of my life once I hold the long-anticipated title of "college graduate."

In mid September I'm hoping to move to Auckland, New Zealand and you can read all the details over on this blog:

I do not plan on phasing out One Hungry Soul any time soon. There will be plenty to share between the time I leave Abilene next month and depart for NZ. I'll be spending a month in California, mostly in San Francisco, and almost a month more in Washington. Even beyond that, I am planning on maintaining this blog with the topics of photography and food and life-beauty.

If you want a more detailed perspective on my life in New Zealand, I'll be sharing what I'm learning and how I'm growing in more intimate details over on my new blog. Otherwise, stay tuned right where you're at. I cannot wait to capture the beauty of the little country of the kiwi bird through my viewfinder.

Dinner and an ode

I'm staying in a big, creaky house with a blue dining room and antique light fixtures in each room. It's a lovely change of scenery, but I have yet to transfer my digital camera over here. So, tonight, as I ate my steamed artichoke and the stripped leaves piled up in a blue and white hand-painted Polish bowl, I couldn't snap a picture to share with you. Along with a balsamic-spiked mayo dip, cold beer, and book of American poetry, it was quite a picturesque, albeit quaint, experience.

Here's a set of polaroids to share with you instead:



I took them in April while visiting my uncle and his family. I was immediately enchanted by the old bench with peeling paint tucked up against their back fence, and may this blog post transition into a bit of an ode to them. They are currently driving from Texas to Nebraska, having (heroically) packed up ten years of living in one house with three young children to boot.

It was such a gift to get to know them better, being that so much of my family is spread apart and when it comes down to it, most cousins, aunts, and uncles fall into the acquaintance category. Their home quickly became an oasis of familiarity in this foreign land known as Texas.



J, A, K, A, & W: Thank you for that. I'm glad I don't have to spend too much more time in this state without you guys, even if it was just knowing you and your espresso machine were three hours away.