Baggage Check

Happy Monday! The exclamation point is excessive, but I'm trying to appear bright-eyed and bushy tailed for both our sakes.

More updates and musings on creative spaces tomorrow. For now, I suggest you visit the Emotional Bag Check to dump any Monday woes that might be hanging on your coattails.

You can anonymously "dump your baggage," and people respond to your troubles with a song and a nice comment. You can return the favor by reading about someone's baggage and sending them a song via grooveshark. It's all anonymous--the site sends you an email notification when someone has responded to your baggage. Sometimes, you get more than one response. Sometimes, you even get a 98 Degrees song from the 90s to cheer you up.

It's totally adorable. Do it.

EDIT: In the time it took me to make this post, Emotional Bag Check closed itself for maintenance. Bummer! I'll leave this up anyway, because you should hang onto this link--if it's ever up and running again, I promise you, it's worth it.

((Chinook Rugged Vintage Luggage by Spool No. 72 clothing company, image found via Pinterest))

Getaway

I have getaways on the brain. After yesterday's post about cabins, I've been dreaming about just getting away from it all for a little while. Even though I just had a winter staycation, I'd love to sneak off somewhere to catch some peace and quiet. 

Which is why, apparently, I have forts on the brain. They're calling for an ice storm tonight, friends that were supposed to come over for dinner are swapping plans for brunch tomorrow, and it looks like I have an evening home to look forward to.

I'm thinking it's a pillow fort kind of weekend. Who's with me?

Trying

I'm not normally a huge fan of pretty little sayings done up in pretty little fonts, but today when I logged on for my morning Pinterest browse (I may be slightly addicted), this one jumped out and smacked me across the face. It's something I'm really going to have to remember, especially today. Sometimes, trying is the best you can do, and mistakes do not mean failure. Why is that so hard to remember sometimes?

Off Days, Days Off

Howdy, folks. This week has kind of flown by, and I didn't want to go a whole week without checking in. Monday I landed myself with some kind of mild food poisoning, which was awesome, so Tuesday I stayed at home to rest, and thought "Man, I can do all kinds of art stuff while I'm sipping chicken noodle soup and gatorade on the couch."

Fisherman, graffiti in Sevilla, Spain 2007

Not so. I spent most of the day sleeping off the nausea and watching bad television. I have some posts coming up about design trends gone wrong, an update on the book cover project, and the self-taught vs. classroom-taught designer debate--but for today, I bring you a quick list of what caught my eye during this morning's blog roll.

• Lately, I've found Before and Afters to be a little bit of the same-old same-old, but this sofa made from old doors on Design*Sponge made me wish I had thought of it first. 

• These block printed note cards by by Kate Sutlive of the Etsy shop Love & Reason reminded me that I have a block printing project of my own that I need to complete--and left me envious of their sharp composition.

• And I don't have much to say about these photorealistic portraits by Omar Ortiz, except that they made my eyes fall out of my head. If anyone finds them rolling about on the floor, could you please give them a good spit shine and return them to me? Thanks. 

So that's all for me, at the moment. Tomorrow, I'm heading to North Carolina for a four day weekend to visit a dear friend of mine, so perhaps some photographs will be in order. Hopefully, I'll be able to send in my entry to the Re-Covered books contest before I go.