Mr. H and I have been trying to get away for a night once a month (this Grad School thing is hard on us) Last Month we went to Port Costa where there is a bar called the Warehouse Cafe and a hotel-hostel kind of a place next door called the Burlington Hotel. It used to be a port now it is just strange. Mr. H is so fun to go on trips with. Now I look forward to our get away day.

Wall Paper in our room

This Month we went to the Chancellor Hotel for a night in SF

I am crazy for this Duck!

And back home on the BART

Canning Dilly Beans

I have been wanting to try pickling. One of our favorite pubs always serves a side of pickled carrots with their dishes and I love them. The recipes from mennonite girls can cook (which is for a mix of carrots and dilly beans) sold me on the idea of doing it myself. You can read the super easy instructions here.

The images from mennonite girls can cook.
How Beautiful do these jar look?

I love these peaches as well. Lush.

A Zine From Ava A

We are proud to present a zine from the first awardee of the Lionel Di Giacomo Residency Program. The residency is named after a friend of ours who stayed in our guest room for an extended amount of time to help us with an art show. It is in his honor that we've offered our guest room to friends from out of town to visit the Bay Area and "make new work." What A nice thing to get in the mail! Thanks Ava!

Before My Grandfather met my Grandmother he dated the girl next door. Her name was Silvia, but people called her Via. I found an album he made of her in our family photo trunk (The trunk that was my grandfathers in WWII and survived a house fire) I love her clothes and I like that she grows up in the photos. Here are a few pictures. (My Grandfather is Bill in the first image.)

I

I am crazy about her belt and have been trying to find one like it

Via Inspired Fashion

Looking for a cool flash drive

With all the writing and Power Point I've been up to for grad school these days I decided to buy a flash drive. I was looking for something with a little more design but with 2 gigs running around $20-$30 I didn't want to end up paying a ton of extra money for the little plastic toy wrapped around my drive.

1GB Strawberry Donut USB Flash Drive $24.99 1GB House USB Drive $24.99Tribeca FV00166 1GB Frog USB Drive $13.851GB Tuna Sushi USB Drive $79.99

Mimobot is the master of cool flash drives! These guys from the Friends with You Artist series will run you around $35 for 1 gig.

What I ended up with was this strange little "Panda" from Target (this means no shipping and I could have him NOW NOW NOW.) His head pops off to reveal the drive. 1 gig and he set me back $19.99. He makes a good keychain.

It all got started during a winter day walk of Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen in Helsinki. Perhaps it was due to the coldness of the day that they ended up discussing the possibility of transforming the huge energy people put into complaining into something else. Perhaps not directly into heat – but into something powerful anyway.

In the Finnish vocabulary there is an expression "Valituskuoro". It means "Complaints Choir" and it is used to describe situations where a lot of people are complaining simultaneously. Kalleinen and Kochta-Kalleinen thought: "Wouldn´t it be fantastic to take this expression literally and organise a real Complaints Choir!" Read More