Kelly Purkey

So Far This Year Confessions

I'm not gonna lie... I'm looking forward to the clock striking 12:01 tonight as much as I was on New Years Eve.  The past six months were a challenge.  I really feel that July = a fresh start.  Excited for what's ahead in the second half of my year.  But I shouldn't complain...  I've had a lot of fun in the first half of 2010 ;)

And so, you get my So Far This Year Confessions...

1. I've taken 31 flights.  I wonder how much of my life is spent on an airplane.

2. The best books I've read were Let the Great World Spin and The History of Love.  Both are set in New York and are amazing.
I have a love/hate relationship with an author adapting different writing styles for different characters but these are done to perfection.

3. My suitcase never gets unpacked until at least four days after I return from a trip.

4. I got a new tattoo on the inside of my left wrist.  It says "joyful" in my handwriting.  And I still want some more ink.

5. The best thing I've eaten was at Diner in Brooklyn with Amanda back in January. This steak. OMG. This steak.
The second best thing would probably be the flourless chocolate cake we had there for dessert (and is on my fork in the photo!)

6. I have somehow reverted back to my college days... pulling all-nighters, playing flip cup while blasting the theme song to Footloose, curling up on the couch with five friends to watch bad movies, dating the wrong people when I know better, and hanging out with super cool Spartans.

7. On every first date, except for one, I've somehow wound up down in the Village.  And that one exception ended up taking me to the Village for sushi on our second date.

8. I've only seen my oldest little brother for about an hour and haven't seen my little little brother at all.  That will be remedied in July.

9. I fell in love.  With the Getty Center.  And with the Jackie Kennedy Reservoir in Central Park.
And with a boy for exactly eight days. 

10. I've taught awesome students in 40 classes plus two online classes.  And spoiler alert... Sketchbook 2 is in the works for August.

11. Have not figured out who/what Justin Bieber is.  Despite my hunger for pop culture, I'm happy to live in a world where I am blissfully ignorant to this.

12. I've discovered I love baseball games, late night ice cream cones, any rooftop party, using letterpress machines, emails that say "you're so New York," text messages that say "come over," Ian Axel, balconies in Long Island City, going on bike rides, dancing at concerts at the Bowery Ballroom, driving along the California coast, any artwork by Charley Harper, and the whole city of Portland.

Welcome, July.  So glad to see you.

Go.See.Do

Thanks for all the fun comments on my Vienna snapshots.  I know I am a very, very lucky girl to get to take off and travel like I do.  I'm also fortunate to have a roomate who works for an airline and generously shares her flight benefits with me.  Match made in heaven, I tell ya.  Perfect for my wanderlust.

This is a layout I had made + posted back in October but took it down because it was published in the April issue of Scrapbook Trends magazine...

Kind of funny to see my Top Ten from back then and think about it now.  My boss David and I were having a discussion the other day of our top three domestic + international places we'd like to go.  Domestically, I feel like I'm pretty content.  I've been able to see a lot of these fifty-nifty United States.  But internationally... boy oh boy the list is long. 

This is what I thought off the top of my head:
Domestic - New Orleans, Austin, any island in Hawaii
International - Iceland, Thailand, Greece

Who wants to be my tour guides?  Hopefully soon you'll see weekend snapshots from those destinations ;) 

What would be on your list?

Snapshots of My Weekend: 6.27.10

Last Thursday evening my roomate and I took off for a few days in Vienna.  Just, you know, your typical long weekend strolling around Austria ;)  So here are some snapshots...





We got there Friday afternoon and spent a few hours biking around the city.  Vienna has this awesome city bike program where they have tons of bike stations around where you can dip your credit card and be off biking for really cheap.  I rode my bike for a while in college and used to crash into people (true story) so I was a bit hesitant to get behind the wheel in the city.  But I only had one close call hitting a small child and only crashed into a wall once.  Well twice if you count the fact that after I hit the wall I was laughing so hard I crashed into the other side.  But riding along the city in the cool air was the best feeling ever. We got very very lost and ended up in the most beautiful area by the Old Danube river.  It was stunning.  People were swimming, boating, kayaking, just enjoying the most crystal clear water.  I almost stripped down to my skivvies and jumped in.  Almost. 

Saturday we took a bus tour to Salzburg, where The Sound of Music took place.  My mom will be the first (of many, I assure you) to tell you that I am a bit obsessed with this movie.  I may or may not have played the tape over + over and reenacted it in the living room when I was little.  So seeing beautiful Salzburg was surreal.  I got to stand on the Do Re Mi steps and may or may not have sung the song out loud in front of many Austrian strangers.  We saw the church where the real Maria + Capt. Von Trapp were married, the concert hall, and the graveyard where they hid from the Nazis.  I loved it.

Sunday was spent attempting to see more of the city (but actually it's not as big as we had thought and covered most of it by bike) and doing a lot of wandering around.  One of the things I enjoyed the most about Vienna is the music history the city has.  I grew up playing the violin and my orchestra teacher made sure we played pieces by the great classical composers.  It was incredible being in the city of Mozart, Beethoven, Strauss, Haydn, Schubert, Mahler, and of course the amazing operas.  I soaked it all up.  This photo is outside the opera house where they project the live concerts going on for people in the square.  And Sunday night we finally enjoyed some true sausage for dinner.  Oh the bread.  The bread.  I wanted to fill up my suitcase with weiner schnitzel.

So that is my three days in Vienna.  It is a beautiful city and one I'm glad to have visited.  Not a bad way to spend a weekend :)

Oh and I can't forget the gelato.  It's been about 12 years since my love affair began on my first trip to Europe.  And when I say gelato I mean the real sweet creamy soft gelato goodness... not the sorbetish poor man's gelato they try to pass off here in the US.  Let's just say we indulged in more than our fair share of cones in three days.

Again... if only I could have packed up the gelato and brought it all back with me.
I miss it so much already.

I Made Something!!!

It's a Christmas Summer Miracle!!!  I actually glued paper together again.  The slump is over.  I hope.

I received an awesome box of goodies from Hero Arts last week and they were just the magic pixie dust I needed to get those scissors flying again.  I'm not normally a card maker at all but there were two people who needed to be celebrated this week...

A few years ago I made a couple of these superwoman cards using this cool stamp from A Muse.  When the cityscape stamp from Hero Arts came out I knew it was time for a revival.

Um, the banner stamp?  Cutest EVER.  

I used paper from a 6x6 Basic Grey Nook + Pantry pad.  I've mentioned using the pads before and love them... they're so easy to use here + there.  I don't buy many products anymore but seem to pick at least one of these up each time I'm at a CKC Vendor Faire :)

And my 2010 Go to One Million Baseball Games but Who am I Kidding I Just Go For the Food Tour continues. 

Eight of us at the Mets v. Tigers game tonight.  And it should be noted that seven out of the eight are originally from Michigan and I didn't know any of them until I moved here.  The Mitten knows how to rock The NYC.  I am very lucky to have these fun people in my life.

Tonight I had to rep both my Tigers + Cubs.  There were lots of haters.  How can you hate teams with so much HEART?!!!  I love my underdogs.

Ok ok so once or twice I have cheered for the Yankees.
I've learned from experience that anything is better than being a Red Sox fan ;)

The Longest Day

Today turned out so much better than I thought it was going to be.
Not too shabby for the longest day of the year.

Credit goes to Miss Mitten, Pier i Cafe, the Play Me I'm Yours pianos (which, btw, I played a mean rendition of the first five bars of When the Saints Go Marching In on) and an eight yr old kid who tried to hit on Amanda making me laugh til I cried for two blocks. 

I know a guy who says that even the coolest girl he meets will still be 33% crazy.  True?

I say we live in a world of nuts.  Everyone.  All of us.  Nuts sometimes.  It's not a bad thing.  Nobody is perfect.  We all makes mistakes and have quirks and are allowed to be a little crazy.  You just find those people whose nuttiness mixes with yours and wouldn't want you to change a thing.  It's a world of nuts.

And I'm happy to be in it... just as long as it's a world of nuts and ice cream.