Category Archives: Misc

good things to come…

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I’ve been remiss, not only in a lack of posting sense but also my budget management… somehow I spent $90 on a single basket-full of groceries last night, and today I broke down and bought a gorgeous vintage Dior sweater on Etsy (in my defense I had to, it was such a steal!)

Tomorrow won’t be any better, I’m being sent into the big city for a Boxworks seminar and an after party featuring an open bar and Third Eye Blind. So excited, it will be 90′s nostalgic bliss with fancy cocktails! But my route from the Bart station to my destinations is dotted with such landmines as Anthropologie, H&M and UO, I don’t know if my wallet will escape unscathed… and suddenly I realize I have nothing to wear to a nice conference anymore, I’ve out-shrunk all my business attire… silver lining I suppose.

In any case, hope to snag some nice pictures for you in the city, and my house is almost ready to show off so I’ll try to do a shoot here in a week or so :p

Deadcat Alley

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This picturesque place is where I spent my evening last night. You might think to yourself – but Laura, that looks like a deserted alleyway! Indeed it is good SIr. That is Deadcat Alley in scenic Woodland, California. Don’t go there.
I went to photograph the following building (somehow located right next to this alley) for work last night, and was pretty sure I was going to get mugged by any number of drunk homeless people in that alley. Luckily I took some fast (albeit blurry) photos and ran the whole three blocks back to my car.

Edit: I was also here, less scary:

Lyydia Wilhelmiina Osala

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As I was unpacking some books today (yes I know, longest move ever), this little old clipping fell out on to the floor. Upon closer inspection I realized it had fallen out of my great great (great?) aunt Lyydia’s confirmation psalter from around 1908. Not sure why I have it, I must have grabbed it from among my grandpa’s things when we cleaned up his house after the funeral. My grandpa Mikko never seemed the sort to hold on to sentimental knick-knacks though, so I wonder how it ended up there either…

I took the opportunity to leaf through the sheaf of papers again, once upon a time in college I read this little booklet on the bus. Since then my erstwhile dog chewed through the antique hand-stitched book binding (I seem to be finding more and more things that dog ate) and now I’m not sure all the pages are here anymore, truly tragic. It was never completely bound together in any case, it was an old bible that Lyydia had taken apart and refinished in embroidered fabric (guess I get my fixing-up gene from that side of the family) and stuck some of her letters, diary entries etc. in between the covers. Her handwriting is beyond gorgeous, even down to the very last careless ink splotch.

I thought I’d translate one of her notes for you, a lot of them are just dates with some kind of scripture quotations dating from 1908 to 1937, but others seem to actually be about her. I feel like a detective piecing together her life. Anyway, here goes, it’s a bit awkward because she used no punctuation or capitalization, very stream of consciousness…

“1922 – it is midsummer eve,
Oh how it is beautiful outside. All of nature seems dressed for the occasion of midsummer night. It is tragic that I myself am imprisoned inside in bed, even though outside it is the most beautiful summer. At first it was too hard to bear such a midsummer, but now I’ve learned that this too is a gift. It is so lovely to think that He hasn’t abandoned me after all, but is just reminding us of who it is that allows us our health and good days.
Here too there is such a beautiful scent of birches and roses, they bring me the vigor of life, it’s as if the illness has left me. Oh blessed midsummer, I wonder if it will be my last…”

Rather dramatic, I think I can safely say that she didn’t die of that though, since she kept writing notes in this book at least until 1937.

I hope you have enjoyed this brief foray into pre-winter war Finland, please join me again next time I dig up some old stuff.

A noteworthy notebook

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It finally came today! I happily discovered my leather-bound Anthropologie notebook nestled in my new convenient PO box home.

I don’t know if it’s because I’ve been sick and unable to pour my energy into daily workouts- or if I’m just cocopuffs for furniture this week, but I’ve been filling every spare inch of scrap paper at hand with sketches of furniture ideas and designs. I finally broke down and indulged in this beauty that I’d been eyeing online for a while. The pages are a wonderful off-white antique yellowish color, and the cover is as supple as if I’d been carefully folding it in my purse for months already.

Back in grade school I carried a sketchbook with me everywhere, but I haven’t so much as touched one in recent years… in fact, until recently I didn’t own a single writing implement. Hope to put this to good use in any case.

PS. Check out these vintage leather camera lens cases I picked up at my guilty pleasure

PPS. Don’t you love this old piano?? Despite my mother’s house being a sibling dormitory madhouse that makes me want to live out of my car indefinitely, it still has some little charms..

Oh Marion

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My head is a junkyard of boxes, craigslist, clothes, cats and to-do lists… not to mention the literal junkyard that my apartment has turned into! I’m trying to move out of my beloved second-story bachelorette pad by Thursday night – a feat hopefully to be crowned by finishing off what is left of the scotch and champagne stash with the boys (who are helping me move, yes?).

I’m sure there are a million things I’m forgetting to take care of at the moment, but all I can think about is: oh my god, did I remember to pack my July 2010 US Vogue w/ Marion Cotillard, or did I throw it away in a nihilistic packing frenzy? (I went through and cleaned my “archive” while I was deliriously packing last week).
I love Marion Cotillard, I would bathe in her sweat (yeah I know, gross). She is pretty much the epitome of everything I’d want to be as a woman. That being said, I’m not sure I read the whole article or even know much about her work or personal life….. Regardless, she is divine. That is all.

RSS oldtimer

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I’m usually rather proud of being technically savvy -maybe even to an obnoxious extent for someone without an actual CS degree.  I can hack or at least modify most things to work to my benefit… and yet, when it comes to social media (twitter, RSS etc.) I’m completely out of the barn. Is that a saying? Well it is now. I might as well have just turned 70, I only use Facebook.

Shhhh don’t tell anyone, I’m rather embarrassed about this enormous gap in my social/tech  education. I’ll try to get those things worked out on my blog, but no promises…