This blog has moved

This blog is now located at http://blog.geekxnerd.com/.
You will be automatically redirected in 30 seconds, or you may click here.

For feed subscribers, please update your feed subscriptions to
http://blog.geekxnerd.com/feeds/posts/default.

Fragmentary Blue

Last Friday night, Matt and I got together with a few dear friends and my mom to visit Lisa Congdon's latest opening, Fragmentary Blue at my very favorite hometown art gallery Artstream Studios . I had so much fun viewing Lisa's beautiful art, and chatting with people, that I did not take out my camera once! Luckily, Susan from Artstream Studios is allowing me to borrow some of her photos from the event so that I can share the fun with you!



I was so excited that Mark was able to come out to the art show with us. I consider him to be one of my very best friends, and we had not seen each other in nearly a year!



Here is a picture of Jess, me with my ridiculously long hippie hair and Betsy Thompson. Betsy is a totally awesome sweetheart, in addition to being an incredibly talented artist. It was great to catch up with her and chat for a bit.



I love this photo of Matt, me, Alan and Jess. Could we be more straight out of the museum scene in Ferris Bueller's Day Off? I think not. This picture just cracked me right up!





If I had $900, I would buy this beautiful painting...



Bottom line, Lisa rules, and it was awesome to see her and her work again. If you would like to purchase anything from the show, all of the work is being sold online here.



P.S. It took me about three days to write this post...I miss my blog.

(((All pictures were used by permission of Artstream Studios)))

Spring has sprung

I've been watching these leaves pop open just outside my bedroom window. I wish I had taken pictures day by day as the little leaf buds appeared and opened. It's been fun to see the branches start to fill out leaf by leaf! Spring has definitely sprung, and yesterday's weather brought record breaking heat to Boston. It was 90 degrees! Unbelievable for this time of year.

I'm still feeling a little quiet here on the blogging front. I've been obsessing over a new hobby that's been keeping me away from the computer. I'm learning to play the guitar! I have tried to pick it up before, but it's never held my interest for this long. I've been playing for a few hours every day for a solid week. Such fun!

The next few days are going to be busy busy...tonight I am going to see Coppelia! YAY!

Coppelia Rehearsal Footage from Genevieve Klim on Vimeo.

And tomorrow, I have an extra Neo rehearsal in the morning, and in the evening I am going to Lisa Congdon's new opening Fragmentary Blue. Saturday I will teach as usual and Sunday I have rehearsal in the morning and a choreography showing in the afternoon. Whew!

I hope all of you are enjoying breathing the fresh spring air and soaking up the sun as much as I am!

She&Him

I mentioned in my last post that while jaunting around Portsmouth during my BEST WEEKEND EVER, I visited Bullmoose Records. I went in for the very specific purpose of picking up the new She&Him album, the musical duo made up of Zooey Deschanel and M. Ward.

When I got home that evening, I settled into the couch with a copy of BUST magazine at hand, the new She&Him playing in the background when into the apartment bounds the hubby!

Him: Hey baby
She: Hi hon!
Him: Guess what! I bought you a preeeeeeesent!
She: Oh yeah? (Inner monologue: Crap! He rarely buys me random presents...it is absolutely going to be the She&Him album)
Him: (Sneaking in with something behind his back) THE NEW SHE&HIM ON VINYL!!!
She: *laughing-laughing-laughing*
Him: Is this what we are listening to right now?
She: Yes!...but on CD!
Him: Crap!

This is a perfect example of what Matt and I refer to as the "freaky E.T. connection."



This is miraculous, because a) I mentioned this record in passing only once and b) he bought it for me on the same day at the same record store! My poor hub...he tried to surprise me! What a sweetie!

Incidentally, this album...both in the CD and vinyl format...is tres fabu!

Best Weekend EVER!

Last weekend I got to take a lovely respite and spend some quality time with my sister. I did not have my camera with me, so I highly suggest that you check out Renee's post about our girly day.

We started out at my favorite sushi place, Sake. Man I had forgotten how much I love their spicy scallop make. It's out of control delicious! After eating, we stopped off quickly at Bullmoose Records (which I will tell you a story about tomorrow), then we headed to Re-Enhabit, a fabulously curated store filled with vintage and handmade housewares and clothing. They were having a 50% off moving sale, and I walked away with this adorable polka-dotted dress:



and a large, black snowflake Pyrex casserole dish. Ren had to talk me into that one, since I was trying to watch my pennies, but I eventually crumbled. Seriously, who could say no to a black snowflake Pyrex dish?

The next stop was the Portsmouth Fabric Company where I exercised some serious restraint. The fabric collections that they have are amazing! The new Amy Butler, Anna Maria Horner and Heather Bailey lines were the most tempting. Renny got some super cute fabric and then we were on our way.

By that time, it was coffee time at Breaking New Grounds, a hang-out spot from my youth, also known as B-N-G, or if you are feeling fancy the Buh-NEEEG. We ordered two white chocolate mochas to pull us out of our sushi induced coma.

Our last stop in Portsmouth was the new to me Old Stove Bake Shoppe. These cupcakes were tasty tasty! The icing was out of control good. Definitely worth the splurge in my opinion!

We then hopped into Renee's car and went across the bridge to the Fair Tide Thrift Store in Kittery, Maine. I always come away with something from Fair Tide, and this time was no different. I bought (yet another) piece of Pyrex, a vintage silk scarf (surprise surprise) and a skirt...that cannot be pulled over my big bum or giant boobs, so therefore will be living a second life as a tube dress.



I just couldn't pass up that fabric, so I had to get inventive. It looks super cute with a wide belt :)

When we got back to Renee's for the evening we played an epic round of Rock Band. Renee got a 100% singing Don't Stop Believin' by Journey which pretty much sums up the awesomeness of my sister in a nutshell.


Like I said...best weekend ever!

Bob Dylan and Ketchup

Buckets of rain
Buckets of tears
Got all them buckets coming out of my ears
Buckets of moonbeams
You got all the love honey baby I can stand



I have had this Dylan song stuck in my head all week. I love Neko Case's cover of it, have a listen, it's pretty! The song is completely appropos, since it has been pouring buckets of rain here in Massachusetts all week long. I'm seriously considering building an ark and gathering things in two.

I apologize for being a bit MIA. I've been extremely busy with work and Neo and have fallen into a little bit of a slumpy slump. Not just with blogging either, my house management skills have been eluding me as well. This is the kind of slump where I will attempt to make a grocery list, and instead I end up staring at recipes and the blank piece of paper in front of me for over an hour, becoming increasingly more boggled by the second about what to eat/buy. Does this happen to other people too? Or is this a brand of insanity entirely unique to me?!?

Sigh. Here I am! Trying my best to catch up. (Har-har...that's where the ketchup in the post title comes in. I am beyond clever. And clearly mental.)

I do have one tid bit of good news to share, since some of you have asked. YES, my dance company got the opening act slot! If you are a reader within driving distance, I will be putting up performance information soon over on the Neoblog.

Aside from that life has been pretty much work work work, dance dance dance, sleep sleep sleep around these parts. This past weekend I was able to escape and have THE MOST AWESOME GIRLY WEEKEND OF ALL TIME with my seeeester, but I will save that for tomorrow's blog post...Which will be more enthralling...and maybe have pictures. Maybe.

Neo Indoor Picnic

Well, my goodness, it is just pouring BUCKETS in Boston! Pouring, pouring, pouring rain ever since yesterday. That did not keep me from having a full and busy day though!

This morning the Neo ladies and I visited the artistic directors of another local dance company to audition to be the opening act for their upcoming performance. This company is larger than ours, and their shows are well attended, since they have an established audience here in Boston. My dancers performed their piece well, and now we must wait! We will probably know by the middle of the week whether or not we will be in the performance. Keep your fingers crossed - it would be a great opportunity for my company!

Since we had to meet at a dance studio in the city at noon, this put a wrench in our normal rehearsal schedule. I offered the girls a stop-over lunch at my house on the way to rehearsal in the North Shore. It was such fun!



I absolutely love entertaining, and nothing makes me happier than seeing my dining room table filled with dancers! We had a tasty lunch of Carrot-Ginger Soup, recipe here. This is one of my new favorite go-to recipes. I recommend doubling the batch, otherwise it will be gone in an instant!

I hope that you are staying warm, toasty and DRY wherever you are!

Five Senses Friday

:: tasting ::

orange scones



:: hearing ::

here's looking at you kid by The Gaslight Anthem

Add to a playlist   More from this artist

:: seeing ::

so much sunshine for the month of March

:: smelling ::

lemon essential oil, that i sprinkle on my dust rags to make the rooms in my apartment smell nice

:: touching ::

the beautiful yarn and prezzies sent to me by my buddy cyndle (((more on this later!)))

:::

Well, to sum it up politely, this week sucked! (Aside from all of the mail love lavished upon me by my awesome blog friends of course). Today was the cherry on top of a very big suck cake. It started out with a painful stomach flu, moved on to Matt getting a $150 parking ticket ON OUR STREET, and finished today with me realizing that I bounced our rent check. I have never ever done this before, and what made the whole thing worse was that it was entirely my fault. I made a stupid mathematical error when I was transferring money into my checking account to cover things and came up short. The worst thing is, is that we had the money to cover rent, but because of my dumb, dumb, DUMB mistake we've been slammed with fees and now we're in the hole. This is all happening smack in the middle of one of those stellar weeks where I am not sure where our next meal going to come from. I cried my fool eyes out this morning.

During a brighter moment earlier this week, I sat down and wrote my husband a little love note. Part of it said something to the effect of The bills might stack up and the fridge might be bare, but as long as I have you, I am rich. Ahem, FYI, universe, that wasn't some call for a cosmic test of my love, and sanity. You can step off a bit...Jerk.

I bet Matt feels rich when I snot all over the shoulder of his favorite sweatshirt.

SIGH.

I am rich. I am rich. I am rich.

Tomorrow will be a new day.

Random Kindness from Strangers

One of the things that I have always found amazing about the blogosphere, is the random utter kindness of total strangers. A few weeks ago, I received an e-mail from a sweet woman named Wendy. She had been following my blog since the first round of the Vintage Swap. She said incredibly complimentary things about my ramblings here on G+N, and said that she had found "a few things" she thought I might like while shopping for the round two of the Vintage Swap (which I am sadly not participating in). Could she have my address to send me a package, or is that creepy and weird?

Let me think about this for 2.5 seconds...umm it's never creepy and weird if you want to send me vintage stuff! Oh boy, I just got a funny horrible image of me getting kidnapped by a man in a creepy van waving, not candy, but vintage sheets. I have serious issues.

I waited for days, thinking a padded envelope with my name on it would show up at any moment. Wendy was, in fact, just sending "a few things." What really happened is that I opened my screen door one day and a giant package fell out of my door frame, walloped me in the shins, and came crashing onto my cement porch. That's when I noticed FRAGILE written all over it. Thanks United States Post Office! I reached to pick it up, but my hands were full of other stuff, and I dropped it again!!! Doh! At this point I'm thinking to myself, "Great. Now I have to e-mail Wendy and thank her kindly for the giant box full of broken Pyrex. I am an idiot."

I finally got the huge box upstairs and opened it up. Not a single thing inside was broken, and each little gift made me squeel, gasp or otherwise!

s&p shakers (in their original packaging), a tiny Fire King luster ware dish and a maple syrup carafe



an amazing vintage apron with lobsters on it, what any good New England girl needs for summer time!



a piece of patchwork that is destined to become a pillow for my bedroom



a beautiful table runner embroidered with butterflies



A SILK SCARF! now i have 32, YESSS!



a janis joplin-esque hat, which sits ridiculously high on my head, but i intend to wear it anyways.



a tea towel



a crocheted pillowcase



an amazingly sweet tray!



Also included was a note from Wendy written on a BINGO card (*love*) and an issue of Workbasket Home Arts magazine from May, 1969. The hilarious advertisements in that gem are worthy of its own blog post!

Thank you so, so, much Wendy! Your package was such a thrill to receive!

P.S. You really should start blogging. Maybe you can post about where you find all of this amazing stuff!

CRDF Recap

Thank you for the well wishes for my dance company's performances. Everything went swimmingly!



If you want to read a detailed recap of my dancing weekend, you can do so over at the NEOBLOG.

Unfortunately, I think my busy weekend ran me down a bit, I've been suffering with a bit of a stomach bug since last night. I'm off to get some rest for the evening, hopefully I will be back to my good-lookin' cookin' crafty self soon!

xo!