Exploring State Highway 55

Boise, Idaho

It’s been a fairly quiet month for blogging, my apologies! I’ve been working through some emotions ( as always, lol) and of course it’s the holidays, so busy busy! Not really, but it feels like it sometimes. It’s not the usual adult kind of busy but my one year old is taking up loads of time. He demands my time and I am ready ready and willing to give it to him at his every whim. I did manage to do some traveling out to a small city called McCall about two hours north of Boise. I figured I would take a quick moment to share the photos of the trip while my boy is having a particularly long nap!

The destination was a straight shot north on state highway 55, and many times during the drive I felt so overwhelmed with the beauty that I could feel my mouth drop and maintaining focus on the road became slightly challenging. Not too challenging of course, as you are highly motivated to pay attention when the road is narrow and at nearly 5,000 ft elevation and if you swerve even a little bit you will be falling down mountains to a certain death.

  • The beginning of the trip, before the steep mountain drops. Near Eagle, ID.

It’s a very mild winter this year, thankfully. At least in Boise. McCall, ID has the highest average snowfall in the state, so I set out to see some snow! I had to stop at a few places to just absorb the scenery and snap some shots. The mountains and valleys surrounding the Payette river are an absolute dream. I am alone, and enjoying the peace. These drives and explorations are what heal my soul. I love seeing the beautiful less traveled spots across the USA.

It gets grayer and grayer as I move closer to a snowstorm. These photos are quite bright, you wouldn’t anticipate it actually being in the 30s and quite cold. It was a bad day to forget my chapstick at home, thats for sure.

I finally made it to Lake Cascade and boy, is it breathtaking! Cold, snowing, and sometimes hard to tell what is water and what is earth. The reflection of the mountains in the lake staring back at me is something I’ll never forget. There’s children nearby sledding. I’m going for a walk, in the snow, with my big city knee high boots that I foolishly thought would treat me will in the snowy weather.

The next stop: McCall! The spot I am headed to is called Payette Lake. Payette Lake is a 5,330 acre expanse of clean, glacial water sitting at an elevation of about 5,000 feet in the mountains of Idaho. I’ve seen photos of it during one of my late evenings studying geography and history of Idaho and have wanted to have a look in person for many, many moons. It does not disappoint!

I had lunch in a winery cafe in McCall, a hot tea to go and made my way south on highway 55 to head home for the day. Taking in beautiful sights is fine but I didn’t budget a hotel and driving in the dark on narrow mountain roads while it was snowing was significantly less appealing. I managed to grab one sunset shot through the mountains around Smiths Ferry. It was stunning and I wish the photo would do it even a shred of justice, but alas. Just imagine the soft pinks and oranges blanketing the skies behind the mountainous terrain.

Sunday was always my favorite day to write

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Also, my favorite day for an evening coffee. It feels naughty caffeinating later in the evening when a workday looms so close. The difference now is that the looming workday isn’t relevant for me and I can have an evening coffee whenever I want.

I haven’t done any art and have been battling with a mild depression that has been building for months and months as I’ve been struggling to adapt to wifehood and motherhood and not having a career. Making friends as an adult is hard. I wonder if people realize how stand offish they come across.

Strangers in the world.

Staring at you, staring at them, staring at me. It’s interesting, people watching. Always has been. Everyone is busy. No one is watching. I like to find the ones that are. We smile, we engage, we are busy but, not too busy. Not too busy to be friendly. The world needs more of that. Now, more than ever.

How to make your headache more tolerable in 5 steps

writing

What to do when you have a migraine? I’ve asked google this question plenty of times looking for some advice outside of the usual. No silly ear piercings or magical quick fixes here.

Headaches are difficult and they cannot always be solved quickly and easily.

More often than not, you will have to simply exist through a headache.

This is a guide to make your headache experience as smooth as possible, in five easy steps!

Step 1: Dim the lights.

Bright lights always make my headaches worse, but everyone will have their own unique triggers. If you haven’t done so before, you should identify (so you can avoid) your migraine triggers. In my case, I will avoid strong smells such as cigarette smoke and bright lights. If at work, close your blinds and door to avoid unnecessary sound/ light.

Step 2: If possible, take a bath. Alternatively, wash your face with cool water.

A bath is the ultimate relaxation technique. Bonus points if you can procure some bath salts, lavender oil, etc. Dim the lights and just let yourself go. I enjoy a hot bath with a cool washcloth on my forehead for a thirty minute soak. This doesn’t cure my headache, but it will help.

Step 3: Drink plenty of water.

Staying hydrated is especially difficult to do when you are depressed, but just power through a glass of water! It will do your body so much good just to have some liquids. Remember, you should drink 8 glasses of water every day!

Step 4: A cup of tea.

I admit it, I’m a caffeine addict. Tea helps me. Add one of your favorite herbal tonics as an added bonus!

Step 5: Give your head a rub.

This one seems pretty obvious, but I was really stretching with this list! It’s easy to forget that you can rub your own head. take your thumb and forefinger and press into your temples slowly in a circular motion. After a while, and a nap, you’ll be back to 100% in no time at all~!

Staring contest (with the woman from my canvas)

art, art, photos

My woman is staring back at me with golden specks in her brown eyes. My woman, of course, is the painting I’ve been working on today. It is something old and ugly, and maybe, I thought, I can make her beautiful today. So I gave her specks of gold and a few more defined strands of green hair and a better environment and then, I drank a cup of reheated coffee. 

We’re poor now, so I guess I should embrace doing something out of character like drink a reheated cup of coffee.  It’s not very good. The coffee is too strong this morning, and something about a reheated coffee is just intrinsically gross. 

I don’t think I even love to paint anymore, but I do it anyway out of a distrust of any other mediums I would otherwise be interested in exploring. What if I started sculpting? Embraced sewing and fashion? Who cares. I have all this paint, I might as well paint over the same stuff several different times until they are as perfect as something I create with my hands could possibly be.

The graffiti in surrounding London is quite lovely. I’ve always had a taste for it. And then, there’s the graffiti I’ve never seen in person. The pieces in Germany and Spain and the Netherlands.  South America. The “rakugaki” or grafitti of Japan, and graffiti in other Asian countries. I have worked on my art inspired heavily by graffiti and art from great manga makers of the 80s and 90s. 

Source: IDK (Help me?)

I gave up on the coffee a while ago. Some things are just not worth sacrificing. It’s a fine time for tea anyways. And so I go about, staring at my woman and she stares right back at me. I’ve got to keep working on her. Refining every strand of hair and every curve of her body until she’s as perfect as possible and I am exhausted and content. 

  • Until next time…
  • My woman (mitosis)
  • The other one I’m working on. Untitled.

The winter is flirting with me and I am not ready for her.

Boise, Idaho, writing

Not enough pants that I can layer, not enough money to pay heat bills, not enough boots or hot cocoa or fuzzy socks. But we’re getting there! A few weeks back, Boise suffered from the earliest freeze in 30 years and a few of my porch plants died. Oh well! I did manage to rescue a few after giving them a thorough haircut but some new growth is still there. And so we start again.

  • dirty, dirty finger(nails)

How did the pioneers survive out in these lands with no electricity or accommodations outside of their wood cabins and determination? Absolutely inspiring to think how far we humans have come and especially how rapidly we have changed since the industrial revolution.

It’s November, so that means that little one is turning one year old at the end of the month! Exciting times every day and I am happy I still have time to write & paint & pursue other hobbies with him. At the dollar store, I bought 2 bags of 25 colorful balloons to fill up his playpen for the next 4 weeks so we can have a super fun November! I know at least I love that balloons, and maybe the cat does too sometimes.

I got my hands dirty with some paint this week, working on something from both last week and last summer! It’s a vaguely woman shaped figure with celestial matter spilling out her her guts, standing next to a yellow bird.

  • Ok bye!
  • Loving the contrast of the yellow on my blue nails!
  • So far.

The womanly figure’s face must be left intentionally blank, because it’s heavily textured as it glows in the dark. The yellow bird got some more coats of yellow, and some skin tones were improved. I painted some lightning and some stars, more DNA strands and curves a holy light emerging from behind the earth. As per usual, not sure where I was going with this, nor where it is headed, i’m just loving the process!

More on this soon! I hope to have some more time painting this weekend 🙂 Until next time!

Break open the dam and art comes rushing out

art, art

That is what adopting the stay-at-home-mom lifestyle has felt like so far. I get to spend time expressing myself and expressing everything and teaching the babe. His face is learning to react to my own face and he is watching me make art after lunch and we hang out all the time.

The latest piece I have been working on was originally just me trying to practice hands. I don’t paint them enough. There’s a lot of subjects I don’t touch with my paintbrush (or with a ten foot pole.) It quickly turned into my usual scenery, there is a woman with long blue hair. The view is of her back, she’s looking at something. Forward.

I suppose the art world requires artwork being titled. I have yet to catch on to these requirements with my painting so this work is yet untitled. Her skin is dark, it’s orange, it almost looks bruised. And then. leaves start swirling around her. There are trees that start to form, swallowing her up. It’s quite windy, I can feel the breeze and the goosebumps that sweep over her body on my own skin.

In the top right corner, I can start to see that the nude woman is looking at herself in the distance. The same long, flowing blue hair following the whims of the wind. The forests of which they meet are swirled with colors, feelings, moods. There is a muddy rainbow and mushrooms on the forest floor.

The woman’s spine is showing. She looks to herself in the distance. This piece will be updated in my art gallery when it is done.

In high school, I wrote a science fiction story about brand-cities

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I predicted these brand-cities to be big names. The Amazon’s, Coca Colas, and Microsofts of the world. Each city represented the headquarters of a very large brand. The city infrastructure built around the corporate presence.

The economy stirred exclusively by the corporation and it’s workers. The story felt like a far fetched fantasy at the time of writing. The words reflected an exasperated beyond what reality would ever support.

If I really think about it, what about Seattle? Home of Starbucks, Amazon and Microsoft. Although it hasn’t been renamed yet, the presence of big business in Seattle is hard to ignore.

What if my high school literary fantasy becomes a reality after all? The progress and health of every city, sponsored by your favorite brand! Can you imagine? Green energy and reforestation, sponsored by Apple, inc.

I hope that never happens, of course.

Not to the extent of my 16 year old’s imagination. But what if it did, how would that impact the world? Is it really that much of a change from the kind of society we currently exist in?

Sometimes I am sure I am just being melodramatic but so much of me things our current world is more dystopian than we give it credit for. In the blink of an eye, we’ll be various technology baked acropolis’. Connected constantly, our lives will look much different. But not too much different.

A brief sum of the season

Boise, Idaho, Posts tagged as "artists" from the blog, writing

Our son is almost one year old. He is happy, grumpy, and gets what he wants. It’s like dealing with a very small, primal version of my husband, of whom has attitude and grump in abundance.

Boise has been good to us this year. My mother came into town for 4 days in October and we drove up to Cascade, Idaho where the snow was kissing the ground and there were colorful trees littered all along 55.

I am anticipating a long, rough winter. I hope it’s our last. I’ve been painting with watercolors, and doing some vector art with Illustrator this week for a friend! I am excited to be able to flex my artistic muscles some more while we adjust to our new normal household situation.

As a side note, while my coffee gets cold: I’ve decided I would love to design and make a toy.

2019 Friendship Gathering in Utah and Idaho

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I used to think that the Floridian landscapes were easy to imagine dinosaurs inside of. Then I moved to Idaho and this landscape perfectly encapsulated landscapes my mind made up that would along with such enormous creatures as those roaming the earth millions of years ago. And so, with my best friends Evelyn and Holly I went exploring in these giant landscapes.

We felt small together, traveling through the mountains, and then through the night.

I love the kind of trips that don’t really have a specific destination in mind. It’s just seeing, finding a spot to stop and sleep. Waking up and seeing some more and then, we head back. The day after Evelyn and Holly arrived in Boise, we got our rental car and off we went!

On the way to Logan, Utah we stopped at viewing areas in Twin Falls, Idaho and

We aren’t too far from the Yellowstone national park. The Utah/ Idaho border at the southeast called Bear Lake is beautiful, mostly green with small hints of yellow in the foliage surrounded by mountains, red rock, and small streams and rivers. We took the stop at the viewing area at Bear Lake to explore and photograph.

This is Earth. Some of it is mountainous and does so well at making you feel like the smallest little part. Other parts are oceans, plains, deserts, high rock walls and each with a complimentary group of creatures roaming about and surviving. It’s incredible and we are just breathing it in.

When we got back to Boise, there was not a lot of time to spend together so we took turns working on a large canvas and were sure to take some silly family portraits!

My sweet friends, sister, son. Until we all meet again, I love you!