{ Creation Ingenuity }

I came across this image this morning by ian francis and subsequently fell in love with it. It seems a bit morose at first glance, but for some reason, I just love it.

I guess I can't quite control what exactly my heart falls for, but I think I can pinpoint my affection for this painting into the fact that it expresses so much of something I could never think up in a million years. So often I find myself looking at other people's stuff and thinking "If I thought long enough, and created enough, I could come up with that." And while I still appreciate things like that, and I'm inspired by things like that, it's things like this that take the cake. Simply because it would take me a long long long time, if ever, to #1 develop the skills to produce something like this and then #2 actually come up with the thought to create something like this.

note: be warned, some of the paintings on his gallery site do contain illustrated women wearing very little clothing.

{ music for life }

I think this ditty (aka Go Do) by Jonsi would make an awesome song for a wedding video akin to this one. Feel free to steal the idea. It just seems such a prefect fit to me. Especially if you throw some stop motion effects in there.

photo compliments of Kitsune Noir

{ spring = 2 months away }

Not like, a glossy black. But like, a matte black. Like, a really pretty matte black with a slight hint of navy, and really large white trim. Kind of like this...



Only in my room, not a showcase room designed for a photoshoot.

Katy said I would probably get sick of it quick. And I might. And I probably won't do it. But still, couldn't it be kind of pretty?

{ winter cabin trip 2010 }

A couple weekends ago, the group of friends took our annual winter cabin trip to the Evans' cabin in the Oakley Mountains (a set of pristine mountains situated about forty minutes northeast of Park City).
NOTE: You can view last years trip in this post.

As usual the winter road wasn't plowed, so as usual the group snowshoed, cross country skied and snowmobiled in Friday night. As usual games were played, group meals were made and we snowshoed up the stream. New additions included an etch-a-sketch competition between Sven and Me, an avalanche awareness crash course from Ali, and no running water in the cabin (but there was a running hose near by, so no worries).

It snowed almost constantly the 1.5 days we were there, which made for some pretty peaceful scenes looking out the windows at night. Love me some good cabin snow.

GAMES:

From top to bottom: Brenna pushing a marble with her nose, the fullest Scrabble game board ever and Sputnik with Annie's fingers throwing the peace sign.


Sven is pictured above sketching feverishly for the etch-a-sketch competition that involved me and Sven drawing themed images, labeling our drawings A and B respectively (and annonymously), and having everyone vote for their favorite.

Final score= Nicki: 1, Sven: 2

First we drew something that I can't remember. Second, we drew Doug (as shown in the middle photo of Doug holding his likenesses), and third we drew a "mustached man," which remained displayed on the mantle for the remainder of the cabin excursion.

OUTSIDE:
Mid day we ventured outside to enjoy things like this...

KPAX in the yard.


Brenna and KPAX attempting to sled down the much-too-powdery hill.


clockwise from top left: Derek after flipping in the snow, Ali looking backcountry-ee, and Brenna, Katy, Nicki and KPAX setting out to snowshoe.


Blurry photos of Katy in the snow and Derek carting the snow-fun toys up the hill taken after I dropped my camera in the snow (well...after Brenna dropped my camera in the snow when I threw it at/to her)


Snowshoeing into a clump of trees.
From left to right: Brenna, Katy, Annie, Nicki, Stucki

RELAXING:
And back inside for the rest of the days we enjoyed views like this...

The cabin's architecture is such that all the weight from the roof is bared by a central column, so the walls are primarily made of large double-paned windows that look out over the meadow and onto the mountain range. Now that's smarts.


I found my car hibernating after we snowmoblied out Sunday morning.

{ Home from snowshoeing }

My friend Emily and I made our way up Provo Canyon Saturday to do a little snowshoeing before tackling other projects in the day. These are a couple of shots I grabbed on our drive out. Such a pretty day. And there's something lovely about low-laying clouds, don't you think?

{ pretty gift }

The other day, I found this visual gift for me in the dropbox folder that my friend Angela and I share, and its whimsiness made my day. It's just so charming.

It is currently displayed on half of my desktop. The other half is occupied by the Type Tray wallpaper on the bottom row of this veer page.

Afternote: I have pics from a cabin trip to post, and I should have time to do that soon. And by soon, I mean I'm shooting for within the next three days.