For us, living in New York City means not having an entire extra room to devote to a baby. At least at first. But I feel satisfied with what we were able to do with the space we have. This is where our girl will sleep, in a little basket under a gorgeous print made by our good friend Miguel. That wall has been painted peachy-orange for quite a while, and I love the way it all happened to come together so well.
The temperature hasn't climbed past 20 degrees in the last 2 days, so we're all hunkered down with videos and hot baked potatoes this afternoon. As you can see, Cinder decided my pregnancy pillow was the comfiest spot in the house.
Chris gave a guitar lesson to an 8-year old girl this morning, and afterwards we walked her over to the library where her mom was waiting. On the way we talked about birthdays and our pets and the soon-to-arrive baby. It really makes you think differently, talking to someone that young. I could feel my thoughts slowing down, and I kept quiet a lot to listen to what she had to say. It made me look forward to have conversations with our own little girl one day, the three of us walking down the street. And then we rushed home, because it was so cooooold! Hope you're all staying warm, wherever you are. Don't forget to cover that nose!
Now, up in the shop, my paintings from the most recent Too Art For TV show! I love these paintings, even though they ate up all of my autumn weekends. Hope you like them, too.
Happy New Year, everybody! So far, I've been taking 2009 niiiiiiice and sloooooow. I'm in my 31st week of pregnancy and, well, I'm feeling a bit fragile! I get winded walking across the street to the Post Office. I even get winded standing in line at the Post Office. Fortunately, my most recent freelance gig finally came to a close, so I can spend my final 2 months of pregnancy prepping the apartment, resting, and perhaps listing a few new goodies in the shop. All you moms out there who worked up till your due date, I salute you! I don't know how much longer I could've managed to climb those subway stairs every morning.
This week I hope to finally open up my Gocco machine and make my first print with it! It's been sitting new in its box taunting me since July, when I bought it as a birthday present to myself. I'm going to decorate some notebooks with it.
Oh yeah, the shop hit 500 sales! Don't know if I mentioned that, but I was super excited. It makes me hopeful for my plan of leaving animation behind (at least for a bit) in favor of building my business while I stay at home with our baby girl.
I hope all of your plans for 2009 go smoothly ... I think it's going to be an exciting year.
P.S. The above picture was taken in La Sirena, one of those great shops in the East Village that is chock full of eye candy.
Wow, thanks to all of you who came out to my 3 events last weekend! 3rd Ward was full of cool people ready to get their holiday shopping on and turned out to be a record selling day for me, even in this economy! Working a busy craft show while nearly 7 months pregnant really tuckered me out, but luckily Chris was there to help me man the table. Somehow, when we got home, I found the energy to forgo our usual post-craft show celebratory Thai takeout and COOK. Don't know how I managed that, but soon after I was glued to the couch with my now constant companion, the hot water bottle.
This weekend is the first since September that I don't have to do much of anything. It feels wonderful. Today we'll probably drive to Target and pick up a humidifier for my constantly stuffy nose (I never knew that was a pregnancy symptom!), then maybe check out some open houses (we're looking to move into a bigger place next year). I hope all of your weekends are restful and cozy.
I hope everyone had a restful and calm Thanksgiving and a safe Black Friday.
We've just returned from Thanksgiving Round One and are headed off to Thanksgiving Round Two tomorrow! In the meantime, I wanted to let you New Yorkers know about three upcoming events next weekend where you'll find me hauling around my 6-months-pregnant belly while attempting to look dainty and elegant.
First, on Friday night, there's the third installment of Too Art for TV. I'll have three "animal family portrait" paintings for sale. A detail from the first, tentatively titled "The Bigelows", is pictured above.
On Saturday night, for all of you music lovers, Chris and I will be playing together at one of our favorite joints, Banjo Jim's. It'll be mostly Chris, but I'll hop in on two songs, I think.
Finally, on Sunday, I'll be peddling all sorts of goodies from the shop at 3rd Ward's Handmade Holiday Craft Fair. I did this fair last year and it was a lot of fun. Come on by and bring some canned food or old clothes to donate, they'll be bringing it all to local shelters.
So there you have it! I expect this is my last big social hurrah before I hunker down for a long, pregnant winter of resting up and preparing for our girl's arrival. So come on out, I'd love to see you!
Today was sunny and mild, perfect for taking pics of my new long sleeve Robo Tees, modeled by Chris. I was making him laugh by imitating one of the judges from Dancing with the Stars.
