PINE

pa•tin•a (noun)  - a surface appearance of something grown beautiful especially with age or us.

Often when I’m in a museum I find myself equally as impressed, intrigued and drawn to the architecture and space that houses the art. On a recent trip to Mass MoCA I couldn’t help but snap pictures of the mill wall patina that houses the intriguing exhibits. So many layers of color - enjoy.

     

     

     

     

     

In honor of Valentine’s a little photo montage of my & my valentine dancing to our wedding song Old Fashioned by Cee Lo Green (yup, you heard me right, Cee Lo - click on the first picture to give it a listen).

Seriously it really was the Best Day Ever.

Love you babe.

~me

This past weekend I had a rendezvous with one of my college besties, Ali. We met “halfway” in North Adams, MA. Mind you Ali lives in Rochester and I’m in Boston - so for the record she is twice as good a friend as I am. She drove 2/3s and I drove 1/3 of the way there.

Anyway we had a great girls’ weekend full of good eats, yoga, good coffee & pastries, art at MASS MoCA, good wine, more good eats and most appropriately finished off by  watching a “Rom-Com” and eating chocolates in bed. Perfect, right?

To kick off the weekend re-cap here’s a little peak into our visit to MASS MoCA. MASS MoCA occupies the old Sprague Electric Mill and in and of itself is a work of art, however below are a few samples of some of my favorite exhibited works of art.

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The Workers was an incredible exhibit! I have to admit a lot of times modern art is way to conceptual for me and if I’d just taken a stroll through The Workers I would have taken it at face value, felt I didn’t “get it” and moved on. However MASS MoCA does a great job with their exhibits and each gallery has detailed information about the works presented. The Workers was a compilation of many different artists and their commentary on “The Worker” in our society - both workers of the past and present. While I appreciate art, I rarely go so far as to say it was moving and thought provoking - this exhibit however was.

       

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BIG installations from Nari Ward: Sub Mirage Lignum.

      

      

      

      

       (where’s waldo?).

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Floating neon church pews from Sanford Biggers: The Cartographer’s Conundrum.

                 

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Finally, the Sol LeWitt: A Wall Drawing Retrospective - this exhibit just made me smile. I’m sure MoCA rents space for private events, couldn’t you just picture the best cocktail hour ever taking place in this colorful space? And if everyone wore black they would just be like silhouettes against the cheerful wall drawings.

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

Don’t you think it would be just fabulous to paint your walls striped same color, just flat and glossy?!? Oh the possibilities!

By now I’m sure you’ve heard TOMS has unleashed a line of ballet flats on the world. YIPEE! I’m a jeans and flats to work kinda girl so I’m excited to be add a pair of TOMS to my rotation.

      

Ooops! Maybe I added 2 pairs to my collection - grey and rose.

FYI: Reviews all say they run big and to order a 1/2 size down…I might even go a full size down. Best bet of course would be to find them in real life to try them on. But if you can’t maybe this will help: I normally wear a 9 (soooometimes 8.5) so I ordered an 8.5, however they are a tad big - but I just don’t know if an 8 would be too small. It’s a tough call. The grey is no longer available so I’m going to keep it regardless maybe throw a footbed in there and see what happens and then decide on the rose. Yeah that probably doesn’t help, ha!

I have the privilege and honor of guest posting today on a fantastic new blog, The Loud and Clear. The Loud and Clear is brought to you primarily by 3 lovely ladies, Kate, Kristen and Jessie. However, lucky for me, they love to have contributors for their “Instagram Weekend” series from all corners of the country…and soon to be world I’m sure!

To see my take on my corner of the world click on over: 3, 2, 1….GO!

* Dotting my I’s and crossing my T’s since I’ll be offline tomorrow: If the above link doesn’t work directly, try this…it should be towards the top of the page, but while you are there hang out a while and peruse the rest!

Whoa, that’s a mouthful. Bear with me we’ll get to the bottom of it.

Allow me to set the stage: I had the most lovely weekend with my Mom this past weekend. She came up to go with me to the MFA’s special exihibit:Degas and the Nude. Which by the way, its brilliant. A must see. Go now - it ends this weekend! (To see a full recap our weekend in pictures hop on over to my guest post tomorrow on the new & fabulous blog The Loud and Clear.)

Our weekend started with the most luxurious treat, along with my dear childhood friend, my mom and I attended Yin Yoga, led by Carolyn, with Live Cello accompaniment by Nirmal at Bow Street Yoga.

Yin Yoga? Yin is a yoga practice based on the Chinese meridian system (the same system worked through acupuncture). Postures are held for several minutes to allow the muscles to relax and to create a deep stretch all the way down to the connective tissue of the body. Don’t be fooled to think this is a walk in the park, just because you’re not flowing like a more typical “yang” class, this is absolutely work - both physically and mentally.

Om: As it turns out Nirmal isn’t only a talented cellist, he’s also on the up and up when it comes to sanksrit and Hindu theology. At the beginning of class we each received a book mark with a mantra: Om Namo Narayanayah. Some people are all about chanting and Oming, some people aren’t - either way no biggie, participation at will was the name of the game.

We opened class with a quick intro to this mantra, as Nirmal explained: ‘Narayana (one of the names of Hindu god Vishnu) is the sleeping blue god who rests on the cosmic serpent Ananta, who is floating in an ocean of milk. “Nara-” can mean both “water” and “living creatures”, and “-ayana” means “resting place” or “shelter”. So one interpretation of Narayana “the shelter of all living creatures.” As Narayana sleeps, a lotus flower grows from his belly button. When the lotus blooms, Brahma is sitting on the blossom - as soon as Brahma opens his eyes the universe is created.

It is believed Narayana’s essence is in the soul of every creature and we have the potential to tap into that divine nature, that little bit of Narayana residing inside each of us. The mantra “Om Namo Narayanayah” can help us contemplate that yet-to-be-manifested divinity inside us all.’

No, no, no - no one is expecting you to become Narayana or become a god. This mantra, simply put, helps us think of those great parts of ourselves that are still yet to be and ask for them to become manifested in us today. Something about this resonated with me in a profound way.

To make matters even more relevant we learned that water, which you may recall is one of the meanings of “Nara-“, is the represented element for winter. Winter is seen as the time of rest, rejuvenation, hibernation, preparation for the Spring - which is seen as the rebirth, time for change, time to manifest change. How perfect is that?

Maybe this is all getting a little “heady” and spiritual for you and that’s totally fine, I’m not offended! But for someone who is not overtly religious it was a profoundly blissful experience that I’ve been thinking about every since. You don’t have to approach every moment of every day with such specific thought and purpose but it’s classes and workshops like this one that help me have these moments of reflection and make more subtle changes in my day-to-day approach.

What is it that I can do today to manifest the untapped greatness inside me, to exist closer to a perfect version of me, to use winter’s long nights to reflect & rejuvenate so I can shed the old and welcome the new of spring and manifest the change to get me there.

In short, this is why I often say - Yoga is my church.

* Many thanks to Bow Street Yoga’s website for helping me find the words to describe Yin Yoga, Carolyn for a wonderful evening of practice and Nirmal for his generous time and follow up email when the subtleties of Narayana’s meaning had escaped me post-class.

Where to start on this post… so many thoughts, reflections and excuses to share. I suppose the best place to start is addressing my hiatus, my last post was 6 MONTHS AGO!
       
Eeeeek! indeed. The crazier thing is to think about how much has happened in those 6 months. I’ll attribute my hiatus from PINE to 2 main things (neither of which is laziness though if I were to be 100% honest that’s probably sprinkled in there too)

1) I got married (yay!!)
More on this later…it was epic. Outdoor wedding the day of Hurricane Irene - need I say more? Yes - yes I need to say more! But for now here’s a little teaser.
 


2) I discovered pinterest.
Pinterest is a beautiful and ugly thing all at once. I have to admit it has been the source of MANY fantastic meals & baked treats, tons of inspiration and even a few “DIY” projects. But it can indeed be a time suck and it sometimes feels like nothing is an original idea anymore… However I don’t think this is Pinterest’s fault, I just need some boundaries and to carve out space for the creative. Like this!


Ok enough excuses, moving on to the topic at hand —> 2012
2012 completely snuck up on me. I mean clearly - here I am on January 31st writing a “New Year’s” post that’s been mulling around in my head, literally since New Year’s Day!
Here’s how it went, I had an incredible 2011, so I suppose the fact that on the eve of 2012 I was a little sad to see 2011 go wasn’t all that surprising. However the trepidacious feelings I was having towards 2012 were a little surprising. The sheer fact that I got married and we threw a kick-ass wedding made it pretty obvious that 2011 was a special year to remember, but I was actually feeling nervous for 2012 which led to me having a hard time letting go of 2011.

Recently I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about my life path, career options, both long-term & short-term, and how they will get me to achieve my/our life goals and importantly, will I be happy along the way. Some of the more immediate decisions will come to a-head in the near months and frankly it was freaking me out. At any rate I found myself on New Year’s Eve pretty overwhelmed by all of these thoughts and actually not looking forward to 2012.

But then the first full week in January happened, on the first Thursday of 2012 I sat down in a coffee shop and wrote these words (*gasp* with a pen in a notebook!). I took a look back on the first week of my dubious 2012 and realized some great things had happened in only a few short days - without me even realizing it or trying to make them happen.

• I cooked two new recipes in one week, and not only that I cooked them mid-week! Sure we may not have eaten until 9:00pm, but nonetheless they were de-licious (chicken rollatini& asian flat iron steak)
• I got back to the gym - even twice in one day: lunchtime yoga followed by a hard sweat after work. At said yoga class I got into eka pada koundinyasana on my second try!
• I painted my nails OPI Lincoln Park After Dark…and liked it (bold and daring for those that don’t know me in person).
• I hadn’t watched TV in days - not even the “news” on the Today Show during the morning rush.
• I went to a coffee shop before work and ordered a latte for here! Allow me to repeat: Coffee shop. Before work. For here.
• I worked on my knitting project 3 out of 3 days in a row.
• I was asked to guest-post on a new fabulous blog The Loud and Clear.
• Oh yeah and I discovered Instagram* (oops!)

*This is actually a link to my gramfeed page since Instagram doesn’t have an online viewing platform.

These may not seem like major things, but they were just the shot in the arm that I needed to have faith in 2012.

Here’s the deal: ultimately you can’t completely control what’s coming tomorrow, next week or next month. I’m not letting myself off the hook and laying everything down in the hands of fate, but commit to take a pause and appreciate the great things that are happening around you everyday. Appreciating the little things that put a smile on your face today make the bigger things you have anxiety over for tomorrow a little more tolerable.

In short:

I sure do!

Check it out. Table-top made from floorboards circa 1852. We can’t wait to get it set up in the kitchen!

      

And its a “transformer” to boot…for now we are setting it up on an island to create some more storage in our kitchen…but someday in the future we will move on to a bigger space and we can take the table-top with and transform it into a proper table. Boo-ya!

Seriously is he not the most professional amateur woodsmith you’ve ever met? Love it! (and him!)