Limbs and head flopped out to sleep. Looking d-e-d.Filed under: Do it, Love it | Tags: Art Institute, Brancusi, Chicago, Klee, Leger, millennium park, painting, sculpture
My Mister and I scored a membership to the Art Institute of Chicago, many thanks to my sister.
We finally took a stroll through the new section, The Modern Wing, which opened in May while we were off getting hitched. It connects with a magical bridge to Millennium Park.
Inside, I recognized this young lady right away, from a childhood subscription to Highlights magazine, where I think I first saw anything about modern art.
Then I started noticing other ladies I liked the look of, doing my favorite things. If Klee’s girl is dancing, Leger’s is reclining with a book.
And Brancusi’s is snoozing.
Look at her beautiful face—
We moved. It was time to downsize, time to save money and time to get away from the kind of landlord who’d chop down an ancient cherry tree in a backyard to “save” a ramshackle old garage on the property’s edge. I miss the miles of windowsill in the old place, as do my houseplants, which now are figuring out the new spot’s light situation, but the change is a good thing.
Now we live on the top of a coachhouse that has oddball windows everywhere, a bigger kitchen than before and a loft where I now attempt to craft though I can’t seem to spread out enough to cut fabric. And with an Important Dress to mock up, I need me some room!
Filed under: Do it, Fixed it, Grew it, How to do it, Love it, Made it, Refashioned it | Tags: Chicago, garden, how to, Life on Hoyne, Mister, Ukrainian Village, vertical gardening, Y axis
My Mister and I came up with an idea to maximize our small gardening space we share with neighbors in our apartment building in Chicago’s Ukrainian Village: We’d grow goodies along the Y-plane, utilizing endless airspace overhead.
finished terra cotta tower using broken pot on top
But instead of buying these fancy Y-plane kits (expensive), or building raised beds from scratch (too cumbersome and permanent), we’d make some plant towers ourselves using the giant plastic pots we already have, and some basic plumbing pipes and flanges.
See what you think.
Then try it yourself. Check out your pots. Terra cotta with a giant hole are all ready. Plastic pots usually need drilling. We used 4 pots each, a 1/2-inch by 60-inch length of metal pipe (Home Depot), a 1/2 flange (ditto, in the plumbing aisle).
1/2″ flange bought in plumbing aisle
The bottom pot has to be the biggest, then 2 medium and a small one, or three medium ones. Make sure with terra cotta that the pole will fit through the drainage holes.
plastic tower on left; terra cotta on right
So you put the flange, flat side down, under the bottom pot, drilling a hole in plastic if necessary. If you drill, you need the kind of bit that bores a big hole.
start the hole gently, then increase it
set the flange into the hole, flat side facing out
Screw the pipe into the flange.
screw the pipe all the way into the flange
Weight the bottom pot with bricks or rocks or something heavy that doesn’t take up all the pot space.
use bricks or rocks to weight the bottom of the tower
Fill with dirt, tamp down really well, and add more dirt if necessary. This is your foundation for the tower.
tamp the dirt down really well so your foundation is solid
Thread a medium pot onto the pipe, and tilt it as far to one side as you can. Fill it with dirt, tamp, etc. Thread another pot, tilt it to the other side as far as you can, fill with dirt. Repeat until you’re out of pots or out of room.
finished plastic tower to be planted with tomatoes and peppers
That’s it. We’re now growing on four Y planes.
It’s five if you count the wooden tower I experimented with for little herbs — nothing anchoring the wooden dowel in the center except for dirt.
anchor the wooden dowel as best you can
thread pots one at a time, tilting them as far as they’ll go
finished terra cotta tower of small herb pots
Cross your fingers…
Filed under: Love it | Tags: birthday, Chicago, concert, George Michael, limoncello, millennium park, movies, Philadelphia, picnic basket, present, purple
This girl turned 3-2 last week AND celebrated engagement to the Crafty Mister with parents who flew in from Philadelphia to meet Mister’s extended family, cry with happiness, lend advice, etc. The best part of all this celebrating was putting on a purple dress (thrifted of course) and yapping with people I love while sipping on The Recipe. I got some really sweet gifts, too, including tickets from the Mister to *George Michael in Concert* at the United Center Isn’t he a GEM?
I love this backpack picnic basket we can take to the beach and to Millennium Park for free concerts all summer like ANDREW BIRD – from the Mister’s aunt and uncle.
It’s outfitted with everything you need for a meal on a lawn, including a cheese cutting board and wine bottle holder, and enough dining accoutrements so I won’t have any guilt of tossing plastic throwaways every time we eat dinner under the sky.
We bike to Millennium Park maybe once a week starting in June, or to Grant Park for summer outdoor movies, both excellent reasons to put up with the hassles (read: rampant corruption) of living in Chicago, Cook County, Illinois.
My mother of course gave me leopard pajamas and leopard mixing bowls.
I don’t buy myself PJs anymore since it might hurt her feelings. Also she has a knack for knowing when I’ve worn out the old ones. These are summer weight and trimmed with red. She’s my original leopard lady, and I’ve followed in her footsteps as best I can. since I’ve pretty much given up on retail shopping, spotted kitchen accessories are news to me.
My mother’s friend sent a stunning cookbook – The Silver Spoon – originally published in Italy in the 1950s and recently available in English. 
The Mister is coming around to the Italian cooking I grew up with, and is leaning slowly toward those flavors rather than the Mexican ones to which he gravitates. This book is the best bedtime story ever since we could read about food aloud to each other all the time.
I didn’t know some of these vegetables existed — and the Silver Spoon has six ways to cook them deliciously (I do know what turnips are, but not six ways to cook them).
Cousins shared from their collection of vintage campaign buttons, since we both are journalism nerds who like this kind of thing. I ran off with the one from an ancient coroner’s race — when Cook County used to have a a coroner instead of a medical examiner. Can’t wait to make some sort of upholstered frame to stick them on as a display.
And I absolutely love this gorgeous birthday gift: 
It’s a limoncello starter, started by one of the Mister’s best friends, the Polch. Polch has been on a brewing and distilling kick all winter, and I’d been admiring the homemade limoncello he and his Lady have been making, so he started a jar for us to keep going at home with citrus peels and more plain old booze, as well as instructions for finishing this delicious southern Italian liqueur. Much as I love homemade presents to give I love to receive them, too.
* More to come in future blogs about outfit for GM.
Filed under: Get it, Thrifted it | Tags: bolero, Chicago, etsy, fitzfabulous@etsy, Mister, Salvy, shoes, suburbs
As I write these words I know they’re wrong. I know it’s wrong to deal with emotional turmoil using a shopping cart. I’m also having quite a time at my job, and am tired to singing the same song to my Crafty Mister, who, to his credit, doesn’t tire of hearing it.
My office is in a terrible part of the Chicago area, in a built up McMansioned, retail hell containing fake-blue-water fountains, “upscale” chain stores and restaurants, and flocks of entitled drivers of ridiculous, expensive vehicles. Also, it’s 22 miles from my home and though we changed offices this year, the Powers did not even consider proximity to public trans for the 5 of us (out of 9) who live in the city, close to said public trans. Grrrrr.
The only upside to working in awful materialistic suburbs is the thrifting (grocery shopping is convenient, too) . A-holes who live at malls shed a lot of clothing, and leave all kinds of quality merch at 2 particular Salvy stores – one on the way home, one that requires a little more of a trip. And since my taste differs from the Mexican ladies who shop the one, and the Polish and Palestinian ladies at the other, I usually hit the jackpot.
Last week while passing each store, I stopped in.
Bunch of these goodies will go to Etsy. Bunches of the purple sort will stay in my closet where they await me.
I used to skeeve thrifted shoes because they’re harder to clean than your standard hot-water-washable blouse. But now that most shoes are made so cheaply from “man-made materials,” I prefer the older leather ones. Can’t always drop $90 on a single quality pair, especially a pair meant for fun, and I don’t want to drop that on shoes that only go to the hated office.
Ashamed to say I feel better.
