My Interview with Frivoli-Tea

I had a very nice interview about my art with Lynn from Frivoli-Tea this week. She asked some new and  interesting questions, and I enjoyed doing it. She described my work so eloquently I am considering stealing it for my bio ;)
Come Check it out!

Thank you so much Lynn!

"Hey! Those woods are snuggling!!!"

edamame, something green the kids love to eat...

The kids and I had a sweet home day today. Lili was exposed to the chicken pox a little over 2 weeks ago, and so the past few days I have been on the lookout for spots. Today brought one spot on her leg that looks suspicious. So we have been staying home bound just in case she is contagious. On days like this I get so wrapped up in being cozy and domestic that I forget to even get out and go for walks or reach out to friends. Sometimes I feel bad about my hermit-like personality in the winter, but mostly it feels right. 

Both kids happily ate green things today. They both chugged a glass of iced nettle infusion and we all ate a bowl of salted edamame (soybeans) for lunch. Any time I don't have to beg to get green in Lili feels like a victorious day. I swear Seo was like a bear eating them. I was trying to regulate what and how much he ate. But he was practically growling when I would pry a fistful of pods from his hand. He wanted to eat them shells and all.  Crazy boy.

We also got a chance to read some newly gifted to us books today too (So Many Days,  All the World, and Little Yellow, Pear Tomatoes) Reading picture books to kids is simply the best.

The. Best.

link love...

1. my morning coffee in a cup made by PINK KISS ... and her BLOG (loving the studio pictures since I grew up in a house with a pottery studio), and I am amazed at how THIS little bowl has similarities to the cup I painted a few weeks ago!
2. newly discovered: this artist HELLO CORNEILIA and this artist KATY HORAN have something similar going on. both speak to me.
3. backdrop SONG / ARTIST for the past month.
4. THIS friend is dreaming of starting to sell her (in my biased opinion, gorgeous) photography~ stop by and support/tell her how awesome following her dream could be!
5. playing around with PHOTOSHOP ELEMENTS 9 (see photo above) that came with my new printer. I am amazed by how much it can do vs. how inexpensive it is. amazing!   
6. made THIS recipe for salmon cakes two nights ago. yum. (although I didn't have half the ingredients so I altered it significantly...)
7. dreaming of our someday kitchen in our someday addition. like THIS collection of rooms from THIS blog.
8. did a lot of my holiday shopping for my little friends at THIS awesome online factory store.
9. loving my new coffee grinder my sister got us for Christmas. Looks something like THIS only prettier!
10. wishing I had joined THIS cool project like THIS talented mentor/friend.

and lastly, I was going to add that Alex and David were driving to Raleigh in 9 days to meet their Uncle Boo-Boo to do THIS crazy thing... but just now when I went to get the link I discovered registration was full. You snooze you loose on this type of a good thing. I had to break the bad news to Alex, and he looks very disappointed right now. Hopefully next year he will get a chance to barf in this event. :)

have a lovely day xxx

safe passages

We are going through a major overhaul of how we organize all our photos and art files this month. It isn't my cup of tea, but I love the finished product. While sorting, I re-found this image of a painting from 2007 that I love. It seems like another lifetime ago that I was painting with wax and had no children...

Safe Passages

2007

20"x20"x1.75"

wax, silk, oil paint, crayon, paper on wood

Yesterday was our first day home from our trip, and it felt like a giant sigh of relief. Both kids ended up being sick with a horrible virus almost the entire time we were gone (and we infected many around us too...) and I am ready for everyone to get healthy and get back to sleeping normally.  I feel incredibly grateful to have gotten to go be with my family during that time, but it is always nice to come home too. 

Aletha Mae Francisco

Just a quick note to let you know that I had the chance to whisper all those things I wanted to say to her in her ear.  She passed on 15 hours after we made it to the hospital. I feel so grateful, and yet, it is still painful...

Her obituary here

♥ ♥ ♥

sweet teeth and a trip north

My grandmother is still in hanging in there, but is expected to pass on sometime very soon. She isn't able to eat or drink and is on heavy painkillers. I imagine it is hard to let go of all your treasured objects and people you love when you are dying. She is a bit (understatement) of a hoarder in this lifetime and I can picture her having a hard time leaving it/us all behind.
.

The plan was made last night for the kids and me to fly up north to be there for the funeral (leaving tonight). We will be gone for 10 days. It is strange to feel so excited to see my whole extended family and yet feel so sad that neither of my grandparents will be there. I hope the funeral brings closure and peace to my heart, since I feel so resistant to her being gone.
.

It was hard to pick out clothes to wear to the funeral. I kept thinking: I am picking out a dress... shoes...a sweater for Grandma Lee's funeral. Why does death always feel surprising to us when it is so obvious and inevitable???

When I told Lili she turned her lips into a big frown and said "Oh No! Never I won't have any Grandma Lees again.... right?"

Speaking of Lili, I will leave you with some happy gingerbread houses my Mom and Lili made this holiday. Lili's was a unicorn house. See that marshmallow above the gumdrop eyes? That is the horn.
I let her pull off a few pieces of candy and told her she was done eating it. I found her later, hiding behind the couch,  naughtily nibbling on a rock hard chunk of frosting. Those sweet-tooth genes Grandma Lee passed down are so strong!
So I suggested we give the house over to the chickens. I brought it out to them ceremoniously and with camera in hand~ thinking it was going to be quite the photo shoot to see 28 chickens eating a gingerbread house.
But, no.

They didn't want it. I guess our chickens don't have sweet-toothes. or sweet beaks...you know what I mean.

until we meet again,
Kelcey

in lieu of holding my grandma lee's hand.

My Grandmother is dying 800 miles away in a hospital about to be blanketed by a snowstorm.
Some things I wish I could say to her~

We all love you.
we won't forget you.
your story is our story,
and we cherish the wisdom you have given us.

You will be missed.
dearly.
take comfort in your faith, it is okay to let go.
leap of faith.
we are all here in spirit holding your hand.

love and prayers.

ceramic paints

 I just started playing around with these porcelaine paints for the first time this past week. They become permanent by baking them in a home oven for 35 minutes which is so easy and neat. 

This is my tester mug (I bought it at the dollar store). I had a hard time getting even lines, and my paint on my palate dried quicker than I would have liked. But at the time I didn't realize I could have thinned the paints with water which would have helped the situation. Alex was honest and told me he wasn't really into it, but I think it was thicker and goopy aspects of the tester he was turned off from. We shall see if I can get it tighter... I do see promise in this project. Plus, it is fun to paint on functional objects. Even if it doesn't turn out to be something I make for my shop, it is exciting to play around with. It would also make for some great birthday presents too. I will share my next trials soon.

words

He has been saying a few jumbled words such as "hot" (toward the stove) and "Dada", but there has been one word he clearly uses every day. And that word is Lili. He says: "Illy! Illy!!!". He lights up every morning when he hears her waking up.

It makes my heart melt.

a bedroom for Lilikoi!

 With some of the profits from my holiday season sales I purchased a new toy~ (a Canon-Pro9000 Inkjet Printer) to make prints of my art with. We knew it was big, but it came in the mail a few days ago and it is HUGE. It needs a 2' x 4' space approximately. When Alex carried it through the door and set it in the middle of our living room we just stared at each other in excitement and horror. Our house is tiny (two story 16' x 20') so that any extra item added creates a decorating challenge.  So immediately we started started playing vocal tetris. For example: "Okay, what if we move the bookcase in front of the window, and our beds three inches that way, and move Eliseo's crib butting the head of our bed...Ect...Ect..Ect.". As much as we verbally rearranged our house, nothing seemed to give us the space we needed. So Alex proposed (Something David has been suggesting for years) building Lili a loft bedroom above the stairs. And I said "When?" and he said "Starting today".

So he took the last few days of his break and whipped up this AWESOME 6' x 7' bedroom for Lili. It is as close to an indoor tree house as you can get, and we all love it. I had been resistant of this idea because it always seemed like a loft would be heavy and catastrophic feeling below on the stairs. But in fact it fits in perfectly, and still feels airy and spacious somehow.  I think the one and only downfall is it takes away our indoor clothesline (see the two lines at the top right in the top picture) but I am sure we will figure something out.

Because we have all shared a bedroom from the start I never had the chance to decorate a nursery or child's room before. So putting all of her things in her new bedroom today felt like such a treat. It is so cozy and super sweet. I ♥ it. It still needs a little work (fits in with rest of our house) but all in all it is ready for action.

Here are some shots from tonight's bedtime:

And all this freed up a little nook to place the new printer and some shipping supplies upstairs. Hooray!