Philadelphia

My sister is headed to Philly today. She will be there for the weekend. I think that I am going to miss her. But I will also have lots of time to update the blog, read, craft, and sleep! I think that I might be getting sick and I am trying to combat that with a spike in fluid consumption.

Moriah just did some amazing podcasting and you should check it out at her blog: http://moriahsmidwest.com/

(I do a little musical number around minute fourteen)

Well, I need to go to work soon, but I have lots of pictures and stories that I will be posting in the next few days. 

Amish Chic

When I was a child I wanted to be Amish. I thought that stage of my life ended around my eleventh birthday but remnants of my desires to be amish seem to have surfaced in this outfit.

Enjoying the Weather

After a week of tear inducing weather the weekend has gotten nice and warm!

Here are some photos of me enjoying the weather:

The Publican

               

The Publican is a sweet place in the meat packing district of Chicago. It is higher-end and has gotten some real critical acclaim in the food world recently. The atmosphere is beautiful, bustling, warm, and filled with attractive servers and natural light.

My sister Moriah and I went there this morning for brunch. It was really good and I was impressed!


I have circled the items that we indulged in!

The menu changes regularly to highlight what is in season…

Letter Holder

This is something that I made over the winter as a Christmas gift. It's a wooden letter holder… It was pretty fun to make this, I got to use a bunch of power tools and stuff. Making this made me feel like I could make like a shelf or a chest of drawers.

Love in the 70's

My parents met in San Francisco in the summer of 1969. Their first date was a Peter, Paul, and Mary concert. You get the picture.

When they got married they didn't send out paper wedding invitations, instead they cut large rounds of plywood into large puzzle pieces and sent those out. They asked people to decorate the puzzle piece and then bring it to the wedding. When all the pieces were together again my parents planned to glue them together and use them for their dining room table. This didn't quite happen and the pieces are still in boxes in the attic. But we got them out the other night and I was so impressed and wowed and generally blow away.

Lucah Samuel Spicer

I am a strong believer that posting pictures of children on your blog is like cheating. I mean everyone loves kids. But this little one is so beautiful that I just cannot resist:

It's Friday

These are bad photos, but this was a good outfit:

I got my bike fixed today and I finished Brave New World. Great day so far! 

Sitting on your Heros

Sometimes I get home from work and aimlessly surf the internet… Let me assure you that I know that this is a waste of my time. Today I even turned down the opportunity to work at a Soup Kitchen so that I could have more time to browse the web… I was feeling bad about this until I found this blog post:

… 

this is the only piece of furniture i am bringing with me to my new apartment.

…

It strikes me as weird that someone with this much respect for Lebron would want to put their ass on his face, right? 

Elbow Pads

You know what's adorable? Elbow Pads!

This was a cute cardigan before the elbow pads were added, but now this baby is above and beyond cute.

See for yourself:

Apple Pie

Last night my sister and I joined forces to make an unforgettable dinner of Risotto, Roasted Vegetables and an Apple Pie.


I only have pictures of the Apple Pie:

Mittens

Today was a winner of a day. Woke up early, did some Blogging, went to a great Yoga class, visited the Theater, had some dinner, and took a fruitless bike ride in search of a man that I owe 93 cents to.

After my day wound down, I found myself sitting on the couch repeatedly checking my Facebook and Gmail accounts. At this moment I realized that this was a waste of my time and I decided to bust out my knitting needles. I proceeded to make one entire mitten in about twenty minutes, they don't call me "lightening spice" for nothing. I just messing with you, I don't think that it is humanly possible to knit mittens in twenty minutes.

Here are some pictures:

I don't like making mittens because you feel a moment of satisfaction and joy that is too quickly eclipsed by the fact that you have to go through the same toil so that you can have a pair of mittens. 

If you are interested in creating something that looks like these mittens I suggest that you go to the site: knitty.com

Stay tuned for more updates, 

Leah (lightening spice)

Chicken Soup for the Sister

The other night I made some chicken soup for my sister. I don't think that I had ever made chicken soup before… And it was a total disaster. Just kidding, it turned out great.

Here are the pics to prove it:

Ode to the Father

My dad is really cool. I didn't always realize this though. Actually I have only recently gotten out of the phase where I feel extreme embarrassment about my parents. I remember wanting to sink into the earth when I went anywhere with him. He would always wear the most ridiculous get-ups, Khaki pants cut off at the knee, a plaid shirt that predated the Jimmy Carter era, and some shoes that were dress shoes in the 40's, but closely resemble something like moccasins now. In addition to this, he is a farmer. I cannot remember how many hours I spent wishing that he had a normal job...he could have been a dentist…

I don't want this little vignette to get sappy, but I have really come to appreciate my dad for who he is. He is a farmer and he grows the most beautiful food that I've ever seen. He also milks our four cows, shovels the quarter mile driveway in the winter by hand, plays the guitar and sings like a boss, cans, writes the best letters, plays badminton like Lee Chong Wei, has a great sense of humor, and has a better work ethic then I ever will. This last mention is well illustrated by the following pictures. 


My pops hand sickled the field that he is standing in: 

Wait Wait... Don't tell me…

Thursday:

Moved to Chicago, got a job, went to one million bike stores in search of a break, broke my bike chain, revisited the bike shops, and then when to "Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me".

If you don't know about "Wait Wait... Don't Tell Me" you should check it out:

http://www.npr.org/programs/wait-wait-dont-tell-me/

There were some really stellar guests on the show this week, Luke Burbank, Paula Poundstone and PJ O'Rourke. My sister Moriah and I ended up in front row seats so we were a mere yard or two from these guests. I will admit that I was pretty star struck. 


Here are a few lovely photos from the night: 

Moriah Spicer

So here's the deal, my sister Moriah doesn't read my blog, which means that I can say whatever I want about her here! First of all: she's hilarious, and she tried really hard to achieve this. She is sort of living proof that people who are not naturally funny can get there, through hard work and long hours of studying.  Also, she's so beautiful, motivated, and she has an amazing job. I look up to her more than I let on, because, I'll be honest here, she doesn't need to have a bigger ego. I'm moving in with her soon and that's going to be great. Half of me is looking forward to it and the other half is crossing fingers and praying to gods that I don't even believe in, that living together won't ruin our friendship. We have big plans for living together. The main plan is living together. And we are going to start a fashion blog, keep your eyes open for that.

Craft on the Fly

Right before I left for summer camp I threw this piece together. I would like to say right now that I ripped this design off from a google image search.

In case you are confused this is a wall hanging made of beautiful rosettes that have been stitched together.

Desperation Leads to This

Readers, it has been a long time since I have posted. The reason that it has been such a long time is that nothing has happened in my life. That's how the life of a blogger is, when nothing happens there is nothing to blog about. Obviously I am kidding. I will let you in on a little secret: when nothing is happening in my life, I blog the most. This is a roundabout way of saying that many things have been happening in my life that have prevented my from making regular blog posts. 

These photos are from the archives and I am posting them on a few short days off. Then I will head back to summer camp and continue having the time of my life. If you are new to the blog and you haven't heard of the most amazing camp in the world please check it out: http://www.bymcamps.org/shiloh.htm