baking successes

I really like baking. The only bad thing about it is that I live by myself and the temptation to polish off 4 freshly baked cookies is far to great, and makes me feel far to guilty to bake on a regular basis. Thankfully I have a band of co-workers who absolutely love home-baked goods and can help me justify my baking fetish.

Praise for these baked goods:

"Sarah, these are the best cookies I've ever tasted"
"A taste of heaven"
"Dude, those bars are like seriously the best thing I've ever eaten, well, other than vanilla bean cheesecake from The Cheesecake Factory, but man that doesn't count cuz it's like The Cheesecake Factory"
"This is my perfect cookie consistency"
"We love that you love to bake, Sarah"

I don't mean to brag, but it feels really good to bake for people.

this feeling I'm feeling?...It's thankfulness.

Even though I'm miles from home, miles from my family and friends, and miles from everything I'm used to about Thanksgiving, I haven't forgotten what today, this holiday, is all about. I'm probably more aware of everything I'm thankful for this year than I have ever been. This year was definitely a first for me. Pretty sure it's the first of my 22 years that I haven't spent thanksgiving gathering with family over a massive buffet dinner. Instead, I spent the morning at the Thanksgiving Day parade on State Street which was really exciting for me. It's good to know people, because they can get you VIP seats in the bleachers right across the street from the ABC news camera :)
Then Becca's family was kind enough to invite me to join them for thanksgiving dinner. I have much to be thankful for this thanksgiving, but I can't help but look forward to Christmas, when I get to go home! I have A LOT of shopping to do before then :S

good weekend and good night

I'm tired. I should go to bed. I got up at 4:30 this morning to accompany Dani and Sheila to the airport. That's the second monday in a row that I did that and it's not getting easier. Besides being very early, I have to say goodbye to good friends and family, and on top of that, I have to go straight to work and try to stay awake. yawn...

The weekend was fabulous though. Friday night we just hung out and caught up. It was raining really hard outside so it was a perfect night to take it easy. Saturday was the art institute and shopping. No matter how many times i've been to the art institute, I find something new to love everytime i'm there. But my favorite painting in their collection is The Song of the Lark by Jules Adolphe Breton. I have yet to find a painting more capitaviting to me.

Saturday night we went out and things got a little crazy. Nothing like hitting up CVS for some dramamine and potato chips at 3:30am :P

Sunday we spent 5 hours at the Field Museum, saw the King Tut exhibit (which unfortunately wasn't all it's hyped up to be...) and had deep dish pizza for dinner. A fantastic weekend...but I'm ready for bed!

my toil...

Here are just a few of the things I've been working on at the Field Museum. The exhibit is called The Ancient Americas and it is all about the ancient indigenous peoples and cultures in North, Central, and South America. The exhibit is divided into 7 main galleries based on the time period in which different cultures were in power and based on their way of life. I'm working on 2 of those galleries: Empires, which covers roughly 2400 sq feet and has 15 artifact cases; and Leadership, which covers roughly 2300 sp feet and has 8 cases. Anything that gets read in those artifact cases, I designed. The graphics I designed in the cases aren't too special, but it does get tricky working around the artifacts, making sure the fit in they correct spots, are printed on the correct substrate with the correct color matches for the specific printer and gallery colors....

But the more design intense graphics are outside of the cases and they're huge. Here are a few snapshots of those graphics (click on the image to see a larger version.)

This is what we call a "cultural intro." each culture has one to introduce their section of the exhibit, so far I've designed 8, each with their own color combinations. Oh, and they're 8 feet tall!


This is a reproduction of an ancient mural. It's going to be 8 feet off the ground and the art itself is 7 feet high and 30 feet long. This painting came to me in pieces, so I had to put them together, make them the right size and retouch it for color and background texture in photoshop. I also had to make sure they get cropped and printed correctly so they can easily be installed by the production team at the Field Museum


This is what we're calling a "Monumental Map." It shows the Inca empire and how 'monumental' it was. The different colors represent the different ethnic groups in the empire and the smaller maps on the bottom represent how the empire grew over time. It's 9 feet tall and 3 feet wide.


This is at the end of the exhibit. It's 8 feet wide.


This exhibit is going to be huge! As you can see by this very small sample of graphics, everything is really big. I can't wait to see it all come together and be finished....4 months from today!! eek!!

a great weekend means a hard goodbye

Hope and becky flew home today. It was a sad occasion for me because we had such an awesome weekend! It was the perfect blend of having stuff to do and having no particular plans. We got to relax, catch up, watch TV and some movies, but most importantly, we got to see Wicked! It was the best broadway show I've ever seen, which actually doesn't mean much since I've only seen 4 total, but it was amazing. The colors, the singing, the costumes, it was so cool. We had really good seats too, even though the tickets I got on ebay said 'limited view' they were in the dress circle (not the balcony), so we were closer to the stage. So that was definitely the highlight of the weekend.

I'm so tired now. Hope and becky's flight left at 8:20 this morning so we were up by 4:30 in order to make it to the airport on time...yawn. no amount of caffeine seems to be helping the situation

maybe it was the wine talking...but maybe it wasn't?

My boss has told me twice now that I'm going to become a full-time permanent employee after the Ancient America's opens. Twice. Right now I'm full-time term, which means my contract is terminated at the end of May. But both times she said something about it, she had a glass of wine in her hand and we were at a dinner or a cocktail party. At work she's never said anything or even acknowledged that she's said it. Hmmm....I don't know what to think about this.

I'm very excited if it's true...