More B-day love & what the hell have I been doing besides blogging? A lot, that's what.

The epic b-day trip ended with a two days in Leadville. We had a great time checking out the amazing examples of Victorian architecture, and wandering around a couple of super killer antique stores. I am newly obsessed with purple glass from the 1880's/90's. It is clear when it is first made, but as it is exposed to sunlight, it turns purple depending on how much manganese was in the sand used to make the glass. Until about 1915 sand with loads of manganese was the sand of choice for making clear glass.

French Victorian example

see where this style gets it's gingerbread name. Looks good enough to eat.

Spindle love!

Glass is so much prettier than plastic don't you think?

Cedar Shake love. I want our Neo Victorian tiny house to look a lot like this. 

So, Leadville was beyond interesting. We also visited the matchless mine. If you are interested in the history stuff, this is where Horace Tablor made his fortune. This is also where Baby Doe Tabor lived after Horace died. There are still piles of silver mining leftover crap all around the mine. This crap is from the late 1890's. Can you believe it's still laying around. Crazy!

Here is me sitting on a pile of the leftover stuff.

Now we are back in Denver working hard. I am busy with design work, while Meg is busy working on the house. We have news regarding all of the house updates but that is another post.

Lately, we have finished the trim in the bathroom and kitchen. The kitchen floor is painted a great grey and looks awesome. We fixed two flagstone pathways that were a hot mess. Of course, by we, I mean mostly Justin. I think it's been like three posts since I said he was the greatest feller ever. Well, he still is. Today he put up the sun shades on the deck. Yesterday, he helped me and Meg get the backroom hardwood section of the 3rd bedroom ready to sand. He is also close to being able to lay new tile in the 3rd bedroom and the other bathroom.

What would we do without him you ask? We would be lost, that's what! Justin For President has been our latest chant around the house. He would make a great one by the way!

Someday I will take photos of everything. Someday when the house is clean. Wait, that may never happen but I will take photos!

Meg's sister is in town this week for a cooking class. We did a little day trip to Boulder on Sunday and had dinner here.  http://thekitchencommunity.com/  Can you say OMG, amazing food. I had this yummy roasted chicken with a meyer lemon sauce, over an amazing ramp mash. WOW. Thanks BABS!

Alright, next week, Meg and I are off to photograph Dunleith Historic Inn in Natchez, MS. The inn was built in 1856 so we are pretty stoked to capture the history and scale of the property.
Until next time!!

Epic Birthday Trip Part II

Day #4 was a pretty lazy day. we walked all around the tiny town of and did a little hike outside the edge of the town. We rented "the Iron Lady" and did a whole lot of nothing.

Then Day #5 was my birthday. Wow. What a super day. We hiked up a trail right at the edge of town. with the most amazing view of the Crested Butte valley and Mount Crested Butte! It was chilly and sunny with some really beautiful clouds. The photos say it all.

After the amazing hike, we headed into town and picked up some gluten free crusts from a local pizza place called the Brick Oven. We went back to the house to make some pizza. As I started prepping for lunch, it started to snow. I would not have believed it was the same day, if I hadn't been there to witness it myself. The pizza I made had some smoked mozzarella, fresh basil and tomato sauce. I made a spinach salad with red peppers and olives stuffed sun dried tomatoes with olive oil and olive juice dressing. I figure having salad meant I could have all the pizza I wanted, right? After our late lunch we watched a movie. Then after the movie it started to clear up and we took a little snowy walk. Yes, this is the same day. It was unbelievable to watch the storm move in and then move back out. It's one of the prettiest things I have ever seen.

The house photo at the bottom is where we stayed for the week. Can you say amazing? The lady who loaned us the house is very generous. We are so grateful, as this trip was one of the top five vacations I have had. Year 38 is really off to an amazing start & I couldn't be happier. My next post is about our time in LEADVILLE, CO. Can you say Victorian goodness overload? Stay Tuned!

Epic Birthday Trip Part I

Usually, I take notes for later reference for my blog posts... or I write the post right away. This past week I didn't do either. I hardly logged on to the computer at all. I unplugged for almost a week. No facebook, no e-mail, no phone. I didn't write anything down. I didn't think about anything do with work or home projects. Unless it was an address of the taco place that had gluten free cheese and green chili tamales or gluten free pizza crusts in Crested Butte, CO.

Well, where to start? The last ten days have been super. I worked on a flagstone patio Saturday before last most of the day. It was super fun. It's about half way done.

Sunday we spent most of the morning at a walk in clinic as Meg stabbed her finger with piece of wood she called a splinter. I call it one big ass piece of wood. It's the splinter all other splinters aspire to become. The mother load if you will. The doctors at the clinic did an x-ray and sent her home with some antibiotics. I am glad we got it checked out, as her pinky looked like it was about to give birth to triplets. Mother and babies are all doing just fine! Ha!

Day #1 of the birthday trip....We drove from Denver, CO to Crested Butte, CO southwest on 285 to Buena Vista, CO. Then we drove over Monarch Pass to Gunnison, CO, then north to Crested Butte. Wow! Colorado blows my mind. The landscape changes from minute to minute. It's like driving though five states in one hour. Meg did not photograph the trip. She just experienced it right along with me. We listened to a lot of XM radio and laughed even more.

We arrived in Crested Butte in the early afternoon. Crested Butte is a town of 1487 (as of 2010) and it at 8,885 feet above sea level.We got settled into our friends house where we stayed for the week. We made a late lunch and sat around looking out at the view from the house. WOW!! Then we took a walk, and made dinner. It is amazing to have nothing to do but be together.

Day #2 in Crested Butte we walked around the cemetery right outside of town. I read the most beautiful poem about death on one of the graves.

Here it is : Why weep for loved one deceased? Our loss is his infinite gain, A soul out of prison released, and freed from it's bodily pain. With songs let us follow his flight and ascend with his spirit above. Escaped to the mansions of light and lodged in the eden of love. This beauty was on the graves of two children, a boy, Joseph, who was 6 and his sister, Florence who died at the age of two.

Day #3 was filled with hiking down to the slate river though mountain lion country. Meg and I sang our favorite vintage LSU cheer to ward off the big cats! The cheer goes...."Hot boudin, cold cous-cous, come on tigers, poosh, poosh, poosh." Clearly it worked because I lived to tell the tale of our walk!

The walk was amazing. There is still a ton of snow on the ground in Crested Butte. Really, things have just started to thaw out up there. We sat by the river for a long time and listened to the water and made mustaches with rocks. As you can see it's about the prettiest place on earth, and this winter. Can you imagine what a summer day must be like?

I will continue the post tomorrow. Next up, my birthday hike and a snowy afternoon. Then it's off to Leadville, CO! Stay tuned!

Wow, has it been busy around here. I am working on four websites, 2 logos, a catalog, a number of print projects and a few other random projects. I can't believe how busy I am right now! I am so grateful for all the fun projects. I have been working on a new website for Dunleith Historic Inn. It's looking pretty super. Check it out!

We also are almost finished with the new bathroom. So close to photo time! Meg planted ten trees last week, and we are in the process of putting down weed barrier cloth on the whole back yard. Then plan is to build a new flagstone patio in the middle of the back yard, and mulch the rest. We will be planting all sorts of new plants, mostly drought tolerant pine shrubs, and native grasses.

We are also almost ready to paint the kitchen floor. It's the original hardwoods of the house, we had hoped to refinish them, but it wasn't possible. Both of us are stoked to paint them. It's going to look very cottagey. Too bad that's not a word, maybe it should be. We plan on painting them a cool light green color.

Then next up, is to re-do the other bathroom and put down tile and paint the hard woods in the 3rd bedroom.

Yeah, we are super lazy fools! Don't worry we are having fun too. Last weekend the Women's final four was in Denver. We had a BLAST.

Well, hopefully, it won't be 6 weeks before I blog again.

My birthday is in about two weeks and we have a killer week long Crested Butte trip planned. I promise not to be too busy to blog that week.

I hope you all have a super day!

Road Trip overload!

Denver to Lawrence, KS to Saint Louis to Nashville to Asheville to Charleston, to Montgomery, AL to Baton Rouge to Tulsa, OK to Denver. We left January 17th and returned home yesterday February 16th.

We drove almost 4,000 miles. We had an awesome trip. Meg had a few photo shoots. I worked all along the way. We had a super busy trip, hence why I didn't blog like usual. I can't believe what we packed into a month long trip. We saw some friends, and family, flew a kite, ate gluten free falfels (here, best meal I have had in a year http://www.patatspot.com/) played on the beach, saw three lady tigers games, and helped Meg's mom get her hip surgery arranged and over with. Thank goodness Meg's mama had so many great kids. Meg's  three sisters and bro who live in Baton Rouge helped to get her to surgery and then are taking turns staying with her until she gets out of the hospital. She goes home tomorrow and it doing great!

We arrived back in Denver yesterday and I am so glad to be home. We have some exciting things going on around here over the next few weeks, so I promise to blog like a good blogger should!

Road Tripping Again!

Tuesday we drove from Denver, CO to Lawrence, KS. 562 miles of a wonderful day in the KIA soul with Meg. We laughed a bunch and listened to the XM radio. There was snow on the ground for the five hours east of Denver. About an hour outside of Denver is was snowing to the south of 70 west. The sky was grey and beautiful with sun streaming through the clouds. The ground was sparkly and amazing. It was a really beautiful site to see. I wish you could have been there.

We spent the night in Lawrence, KS. What a lovely little town. We had coffee and breakfast at the Merc Co-op, then took a nice walk around the JayHawks campus.

Then we drove 250 miles to Saint Louis. We have been spending the last two days with our friend, href="http://lisacolby.com/">Lisa Colby. She is an amazing jeweler, and she is about the sweetest person you will ever meet. Yesterday we hit up a couple of thrift stores and then had a great Indian/Korean/Napalese lunch in the grove neighborhood at  href="http://everestcafeandbar.com/">everest cafe. What amazing food. The neighborhood was super cute. It's called the Globe neighborhood. Why don't all neighborhoods have a super cute sign at the entrance?


Today it's a 300 mile day. We are off to Nashville, TN. We are going to check out the American Pickers store in Nashville because I am curious. Then we are going to have a late lunch at the Wild Cow veggie restaurant. They have loads of gluten free stuff and it's cheap. Then we are spending the night with some old friends of Meg. We are photographing their family in the morning, then we are off to my hometown, Asheville!! I am so excited to see all my friends. Look out Asheille, I missed ya!

The truth will set you free and be really awesome!

Today I wanted to write about something that has always inspired me. Truth. It may sound trite but from someone who hasn't always been able to be completely truthful about herself, it's a big deal to me these days. I knew I was gay since I was in pre-school, but didn't tell a single person until I was thrown out (this is a story for another blog post at a later date) of the closet when I was 21.

Today I am out in every aspect of my life. All my friends, family, &  clients know I am gay and I am married to my partner Meg. I am proud to be out. I know there are loads of little kids out there who are gay. Today they see all sorts of role models... from Ellen, to Elton John, we are everywhere. I was watching the people's choice awards the other night,  & in the first thirty minutes, there was Ellen and Neil Patrick Harris both openly kissing their partners on T.V.!!! It's so great to see opening gay, happy people. 

A fellow gay I have been super inspired by is Mondo Guerra. I don't know how many of you out there watch Project Runway, but you should start. It's an addictive reality show about fashion designers completing to win a load of cash to start their own fashion line.

Mondo lives his truth. In season 8, during one of the fashion challenges, Mondo reveled he was H.I.V. positive on the show. I was so impressed by this then and now.  I have had the opportunity to meet Mondo. He is a super down to earth sweet heart & is doing a lot of AMAZING work here with Colorado AIDS Project.


The Truth, it's where it's at. Take it from somebody who has tried it, it's awesome to be totally honest all the time.

I am off to finish up a few work things so I can start packing for our road trip. We leave next week. I will be blogging about our trip as always. We are going to be traveling from Denver to Saint Louis to Nashville to Asheville, NC to Charleston, SC to Baton Rouge back to Denver. Yes, it's a crazy trip as usual. While we are away, we are getting a new bathroom, complete with a clawfoot tub! Before and After picks in mid February. Happy Friday everyone!