It’s that time of year again when i get to spend an entire day doing whatever i want! Today i’m on vacation from work so i slept in and looked at all my messages on Facebook, and soon i’ll be going to try on wedding dresses with a few friends and then celebrating the rest of my day with them and Nathan. My lovely friend Jennifer did my nails last night so that i’d look extra glamorous in the dresses:
Happy Birthday to Me! 
It’s been a long and lovely several days since my last post. On Thursday at our class i finished my first-ever oil painting, which i’m pretty proud of.
Again – i know it’s not perfect. The cloth in the background makes no sense because the still-life shifted from week to week and by the end i was just guessing at how the light had fallen on it when i did the under-drawing. I’m not very good at imagining that sort of thing, which is why i don’t draw from imagination.
On Friday Nathan and i drove to Chicago to celebrate Valentine’s Day away from home. We stayed at a lovely little B&B in Oak Park called Harvey House and took the L into the city. I did a bit of shopping but didn’t procure much. We had pizza at Gino’s East and Nathan decided that he prefers Felix & Oscar’s pizza here in Des Moines. I’m pretty sure i caught something by not using my hand sanitizer until after my first bite of the baked ravioli appetizer. Zicam is helping me fight it, though. I’m drinking a lot of tea, too, and will probably become addicted to it as a result.
Saturday we went back into the city to see Millennium Park and the Art Institute. It was awesome to see Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte, one of Van Gogh’s “Bedroom” paintings, and some really beautiful Monets. But the painting that struck me the most was this one:
Nouvart Dzeron, A Daughter of Armenia by Ralph Elmer Clarkson, 1912
IT LOOKS JUST LIKE ME. WTH? Even my Mama agrees. But she says i’m prettier.
We had a lovely dinner at a little place called Francesca’s Fiore in Forest Park and Nathan made me drink most of the wine since he had to drive back to the B&B. I ended up talking his ear off about Rome, my family and various photographic film formats. Best Valentine’s Day EVER.
On Sunday we visited IKEA and picked up some awesome stuff for the new loft before driving back to DSM. We’ll be moving in nine days!! I began packing yesterday. I know i’ve got a long way to go, but it’ll all be worth it in the end.
For the couple of you who are scratching your heads about what to get me for Christmas, here is a list of ideas that i had fun compiling on Amazon and in no way expect to be fulfilled (because i’ll be grateful for anything/everything i’m offered, even if it’s merely the grace of your presence):
I should be getting paid for this.
So i got this little Target coupon book in the mail yesterday. I guess the former resident of this apartment was on their mailing list for one reason or another, and i’m benefiting from that. It’s two dozen or so pages long, and each spread has three coupons on one side and a portrait on the other, like so:
I needed a bunch of stuff anyway, so i took it with me to Target today. I found a couple of things that i thought were blog-worthy.
I didn’t even need any pasta, per se–or have a coupon for it, for that matter–but this packaging grabbed me. I thought it was lovely, especially compared to all the other bread-and-butter pasta packages.
I checked out the ice cream ’cause i happened to have a coupon for it, and – lo and behold!:
Green tea Haagen Dazs?? Hell-o! I’ve been looking for green tea ice cream for years and all i could find was some dairy-free crap that tasted as bad as it sounds. But now A. i’ve found some, B. it’s freakin’ Haagen Dazs, and C. I saved a dollar on it, which makes it extra-sweet.
I bought a ton of stuff, and when i got home i flipped through the coupon book again to see if there were any coupons left that i might use, and suddenly the design made a whole lot of sense:
How clever!
And the final reason that i love Target is that soon, with the help of my dear friend Kelly who occasionally works at Target and therefore gets an employee discount, i shall acquire a new iPod touch for as much as $57 off the retail price. Hell. Yes.
I finally got coasters to protect my glossy furniture!
Those are all computer-related icons. I looove these! I found them on Etsy, totally worth the money. I feel like a true web geek now.