concerned dont be.

OBaby: as good a construction cheerleader as there ever was (with the exception perhaps of the needing to be sequestered thing).Yes, he was safe. Yes he was far from the action. No he could not reach anything dangerous (or anything at all). No, he was not breathing in anything dangerous. Yes, we were smart about it.There, you can stop worrying about our parenting decisions now. You’re welcome.

Building Block..

I discovered Building Block via Montmarte over the weekend. Love the beauty in all of her subtle pieces -- from bags to quilts. I wish I could find out more about her...if you know anything let me know. ;)

Christopher Davison New Work..

Christopher Davison recently updated his website with, in his words: "18 very new, very dark, very small drawings that I wouldlike to share with you. They are visions from the long, cold, Winternights." I am definitely feeling that last statement right now smack dab in the middle of February. What did we do before the web? Thank goodness for the long arm of the www. And thank goodness for artists like Christopher who think outside the box, he's offering a high-res downloadable version of his drawing Sculpture Garden (Stand Alone). Definitely one of my favs of the bunch, if I absolutely had to choose.

New Work Richard Pearse..

Richard Pearse shot over an email with images of a new group he's been hard at work on for the upcoming group show, Linear Empires at White Walls Gallery. Richard's detail and ability to connect color & shape in his work is what really draws me in. So much to look at.

Check out Richard's blog to see all of the work that will be in the show. Linear Empires opens on February 12 and runs through March 5.

one day

just one day to me, here in minnesota.but a life changing day for my family in oregon.i set out this morning to document my day-in-the-life, as inspired by laura of the hollywood housewife‘s one day project. it turned out not to be just any old, average day.:: :: :: :: :: ::8:45am: our furnace has been dead for a while now. this was all fine and good and kind of funny last week when the over night lows weren’t 15°. our furnace company was a victim of the hurricane (which was two days after our furnace went out) and hadn’t been able to ship anything out until monday of this week. the new, covered-under-warantee parts should be here friday.for now, i use my oven to help heat my house.9:30am: on mondays, wednesdays, and fridays i have been taking the boys to the ymca to play in their childcare for a bit while mommy either attends a ‘body pump’ class or hits the treadmill. it is a great way to get me out of the house. this is my stupid picture face.literally moments after taking this picture, i got the call from my mom.things are changing for my family in oregon. i don’t really know how to talk about it here. we lost a family member and he will be missed. it broke my heart to hear it from my mom, but if there’s anything i’ve learned about her in the last 10 years it’s that she is strong. still, as i left for the y, my heart was heavy.10:30am: the boys stop to watch the ‘people dancing in the pool’, as always.11:30am: while i run, i pray for my mom, for my brothers, for the other family back home. i just keep asking the Lord to show me my role in this situation. it’s a good, hard run and few things are better than a hot shower while someone else watches your kids.12:00pm: in our little city life, dano’s work is about a mile from our house, and it also happens to be about 6 blocks from the ymca. on occasion, we swing by and pick him up and bring him home for lunch after a morning at the y.it is one of those occasions. it’s a good life.12:30pm: lunch boy number 1.tired, messy lunch boy number 2.another huge, huge perk of having dano home for lunch some days is that when he has time, he stays and helps me put the boys down for nap.i think i’ll keep him.1:00pm: heavy-hearted, with two snoring boys and dano back at work, i set about trying to do something. being two thousand miles away from loved ones when they are hurting sucks. it makes you want to send a fruit basket or jump on a plane or something, anything more than cry on the other end of the phone.i send a fruit basket.2:00pm: the oldest wakes up.  he’s pretty good about taking a solid one-hour nap. in his haze we either read books or watch a show. today i am more pre-occupied than usual, so i turn on the cat in the hat, give him some milk and a bowl of granola bites, and keep processing my thoughts and options.i call this picture (and the glaze over his eyes) mommy’s gotta do what mommy’s gotta do.2:30pm: i do it. after deliberating, i buy a next-day ticket to fly home to oregon tomorrow (thursday). you know when you feel that ‘i should’ nudge but sometimes the follow through on that should is so complicated that you nearly turn back several times?that.but it will be so, so good to be there.3:45pm: normal life, it just carries on, doesn’t it? i click purchase on plane tickets, begin making arrangements… then moments later i exchange a fly-by kiss with dano who got home early from work so that i could hurry out the door and make it to a midwife appointment of the very best kind*.*and by very best kind i mean the semi-annual, invasive kind.4:45pm: with my pants now back on, i return home to throw dinner in the oven. last weekend, two friends and i got together and made several large batches of freezer meals that we split amongst ourselves. this is a freezer pizza and if i had the recipe available, i would give it to you because it was awesome and convenient and cheap and yummy (but i don’t).while i stand in the kitchen exchanging texts and phone calls with family and waiting for the oven to heat up, dano and oboy are outside starting a fire.it’s this thing they do lately, and i love it. it’s about as close to rustic outdoor life as we can get here on our city lot.we also have really nice, high-end patio furniture.5:45pm: having thusly inhaled dinner, the menfolk and i return outside to the still-going fire, stoke it some more, and let oboy practice his mallow roasting skills. we have long ago stopped making s’mores with them as one boy really just wants the marshmallows and the other, just the chocolate.6:30pm: two nakey butts in the shower.6:45pm: we brush.6:55pm: we read the bible together, which really looks like the boys climb all over dano while he reads the bible outloud. today we read the story of moses.8:00pm: both boys finally asleep, i sit down on the couch to email my parents, check-in with friends, and write this post.9:00pm: i have cycled the laundry and am packing for my trip tomorrow that i didn’t know about until this afternoon.crazy the difference one day can make.:: :: :: :: :: ::

Emily Glaubinger at Nooworks, part 2..

I stopped by Nooworks yesterday and got some great pics of Emily Glaubinger in action as she gets ready for her show that opens tomorrow night. She was crazy busy! In the window, on the wall and hanging her stuff! It was great to watch her in action. It was hard to not be inspired by her posi and happy energy as she got to it. The girl is a powerhouse...oh yeah and she makes jewelry! (I've posted before on her rad wood earrings.) At the moment that part of her renaissance is on hold...but if you are in SF her jewels will be along side her new work and her collaborative textiles with Nooworks at the boutique through Novemeber. Emily will be showing her latest work, digital drawings that took upwards of 20 hours to complete. They look so tough. The images are a psychedelic, color explosion of friends and self portraits.

Here are a bunch of pics I grabbed while I was there. Everything from her window and wall mural, to her jewels to her screenprinted goods she and Jen from Nooworks made together.

Here is my post on her sneak peek.

bmi stuff, swimsuit shopping, and saying goodbye

My body seems to really, really like the mid 150s. Like, really like them. It makes sense. This is where I was for most of college and into my early 20s. I am tempted to say that this is a natural weight for me and call it a day on this weight loss journey. But if I went to my doctor today, she would tell me that my BMI (body mass index) is solidly in the overweight category. Solidly. I am still 13lbs from a “normal weight” BMI.And hear me: the BMI is not gospel. DanO was pre-med in college and has his degree in applied health science. I know the inherent problems in the BMI tables. But I also know that they are a good general ball park for health, and even as general ball parks go, I have room for improvement. That is why I will still be on this journey for a while longer.Even if it takes another month to break out of the 150s, I will keep at it. And did I mention that my body likes the mid 150s? Yea. Keeping at it is looking harder and harder lately. I am nothing if not motivated by instant results, and these last few weeks have been hard for that. The most encouraging thing to me, though, is how far I have already come.December 28, 2011 —> June 9, 2012.I have no reason to doubt that I can get to my goal weight – I have already lost more pounds than I have left to go! If I can lose 33lbs on Medifast, I can lose the rest.One of the only bummers of losing weight and changing my body has been the clothing debacle. Last year, you might remember that I bought a great swimsuit that I actually felt confident in. I love that swimsuit, but now it hangs off of me. It might be a tough sell, but believe me when I tell you I am bummed about that (really!). I only got one summer’s use out of that suit and now I need a new one (see also: $$). The bummer lasted a short while, though, because heaven help me, I went swimsuit shopping and enjoyed it. Yea, you heard me. I ended up finding one for a very reasonable price at a local boutique Target.Also hanging off of me lately (besides my children): all my clothes. I have so many clothes that I love that no longer fit me well at all. My closet was bursting with wardrobes in a range of many, many sizes, but some of the clothes were worn only a few times and I just couldn’t bring myself to do the trash-bag-to-goodwill thing with them (Gap! J.Crew! Anthropologie!). Serendipitously, a friend invited me to a clothes swap with her church tonight, so I went through every last pile of clothes and was very liberal about what I’m giving away at the swap. Good bye, weight. Good bye, too-big-for-me clothes. I hope to be able to snag some great finds in my new size at the swap and let my old clothes some more use.But can I be honest? Giving the clothes away scares me a little. It brings to light the insecurity I have about the permanence of these changes. What if you gain it back, Allison? Especially after another pregnancy? O, I know. I know about those statistics of gaining back lost weight. I know that the end of the diet/loss phase is only the beginning of the actual journey and that choosing health is a life-long venture. But at the end of the day, when I declare to myself and my closet that we will not go back there, I feel a pit in my stomach. When these worries start to consume me (pun intended), I try to remember something  Lysa TerKeust wrote in her fantastic book, Made to Crave. She writes:“Moment by moment we have the choice to live in our own strength and risk failure, or to reach across the gap and grab hold of God’s unwavering strength. And the beautiful thing is, the more dependent we become on God’s strength, the less enamored we are with other choices… The reality is, even when we stand on the scale and see out goal weight staring back at us, we’re always just one choice away from reversing all the progress we’ve made. I’m not saying victory isn’t possible. But victory isn’t a place we arrive at and then relax. Victory is when we pick something healthy over something not beneficial for us. And we maintain our victories with each next choice.” – Made to Crave, Chapter 17The very next choice. It is about my very next choice. Was my last choice not so great? O well. Making a disciplined next choice is what makes me victorious. One choice at a time from here on out. Thoughts like that make me confident as I stack those old-me jeans onto the donate pile.Bring it on, next choice.:: :: :: :: :: ::My Journey to Health:June 12, 2012: 154lbsJune 1, 2012: 155lbsApril 28, 2012: 160lbsMarch 31, 2012: 163lbsFebruary 29, 2012: 166lbsJanuary 30, 2012: 174lbsDecember 30, 2011, 187 lbs33 lbs lost!:: :: :: :: :: ::How am I losing that weight, you ask? Medifast!! If you use the coupon code, OFAMILY56, and sign up for Medifast Advantage, when you order $250+, you’ll receive 56 free Medifast Meals and free shipping! (More details at the bottom of this post.)Disclosure: I receive free product in order to evaluate and comment on my experiences on the Medifast Nursing Mothers Program. I will only ever tell you how I actually feel about this experience and the Medifast products. Pinky swearsies. I am supposed to tell you that the Medifast Program is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease or illness and that any medical improvements noted while on the program are related to weight loss in general, and not to Medifast products or programs. K, you got that? Good. There will be a quiz later.