Four things that bring visual happiness

At Home with Amy Sedaris

Actress and comedian Amy Sedaris cordially invites you into her home with the premiere of her new comedy series At Home with Amy Sedaris, which premieres on Tuesday, October 24 at 10:30pm ET/PT. In this series co-created by Sedaris and Paul Dinello, Amy will show off her diverse but necessary homemaking skills.

The Art of Pee-wee: "It's an art project that happened to get on TV"

seth_bogart_show_356_mission.0.jpg

Rebecca Green - Her illustrations bottle up every happy childhood memory

JUCO Photo - I could stare at these photos for hours

The First 100 Days

Since January 20th, I've been in a constant state of researching what's going on in our political climate. I think it's become a way for me to process and dare I say, grieve, what I feel is complete chaos and a direction that scares me. It's been enlightening and frustrating to read about our illegal immigration systems and just how deeply complicated it is. I've researched groups like "The Freedom Caucus" and read the America First budget. My friends and I meet once a month to talk about what's going on and work on issues that mean something to us. I've even had a group of women from Portland, OR reach out to our group to see how they can partner with us across state lines and advocate for each other's political issues. It's been a crazy yet empowering last 100 days and I am frequently asking myself "what's happened to you and why are you using words like "constituents" in your vocabulary these days?". I also feel embarrassed that it's taken me so long to wake up.

Another way I've been working through things I've read is to design something with that information. A lot of it is completely bonkers and it directly affects so many I love. I'm not sure what else to do with the information except to chart it out and share it with the world.

One of the items on the America First chopping block are our public libraries. I decided to take a few of the points in the budget that concerned me and design them to look like library catalog cards. 

Interested in getting to know who this group called the House Freedom Caucus is? Hey, me too! Here's a little info about them.

Thanks for following along. Because this is the internet and things can quickly go off the deep end with fact checkers, I'll ask that you please do research on your own if you feel this is off base. I'd even love it if you shared with me your findings that may be different. 

Finding The Grand Budapest Hotel in Guatemala

A couple weeks ago my husband and I visted a small town in Guatemala called Panajachel. Panajachel lies on the banks of Lake Atitlan and serves as an entry point and boat launch to all other parts of the incredible lake. While exploring this town, we came upon a hotel called Hotel El Chaparral. I stopped in my tracks and thought perhaps we accidentally stumbled upon the inspiration for The Grand Budapest Hotel.

Hotel El Chaparral

Hotel El Chaparral

The Grand Budapest Hotel

The Grand Budapest Hotel

In my broken Spanish I asked the woman at the front desk if we could look around. To my surprise, there were so many architechtual details that were so similar to Wes Anderson's film. The arches? Check. Bathhouse? Check. Hand painted signage? Check. Color palette? Check.

The Grand Budapest Hotel

The Grand Budapest Hotel

What a dream this hotel was! If you find yourself in the middle of Guatemala, check it out!