Once upon a time there was a trip...

Holy trip, batman!
and what a vacation it was.
The cheapest garage/apartment sale in the history of the world was held in our apartment.
everything went for $1.
we sold about 150 cds for $25..or maybe it was $20.
the most kickbutt-heavy duty-don't mess with me-frying pan sold for...$1
dishes.silverware.bookshelves.printer.desk.bed.couch.tv.clothes.dresser-well, not everything went for a dollar.
i think we celebrated freedom from STUFF at McDonalds. interesting.
the rest we passed out our first floor window
and packed..I mean, PACKED....I mean, shoved.crammed.jammed.slipped.squished.pushed.smashed.folded.PACKED into our car. and on top.
strapped it all down...crammed somemore.
threw away/gave away/mailed away the left overs.
waved goodbye to chicago-the city of fantastic hotdogs.pretty buildings.and oh so good friends.
and then we hit the road.......jack.
First stop...Wisconsin. We decided we liked it better than we thought we would. Rolling meadows mixed with orchards mixed with small rocky cliffs. Nice.
Took backroads for several hours and decided to stop earlier than planned. Besides, we had no where to be.no deadlines.no time frame. no home to get back to... we were gypsies for a week.
Governor Dodge State Park. Yeehaa...one of the longest entrances to a camp site I have ever seen. That is, until we got to S. Dakota. Damn you, Custer National Park.

....and well...one day I will get a MAC..or maybe even DSL. And I can show more pictures of the trip. In the meantime it will be all words...WORDS!!!

But long story short..we made it to Idaho. and it rocks. well...first it sucked...then it began to rock. and now it is rockING.

oh...and yippee for periwinkle!

Places to GO...things to SEE!

Yo! Family!! Yes..this means YOU!

So Timmy and I are taking this super fantasical road trip over to Idaho by way of HWY 90. We wanted to take a week or so to get out there...and maybe see some neat sights and go camping..state parks...wander off of HWY 90 a little. If any of you have any suggestions of things to see, places to go....feel free to let us know! I think I just need to look at a huge atlas that points out State Parks and what not. But we wanna see something REALLY amazing. So rack your brains and tell us anywhere you can think of!!

Gracias

"...gonna eat me alotta peaches.."

So, did I mention we are moving to Idaho? You may have heard it through the grape vine (what a good song)... lets all try and make a long story shot and enjoyable. And maybe sing it..and make up your own tune if you'd like.
A little before Christmas Tim's parents house basically burned down
His dad had back suuuurgeryyyy
His mom fell and dislocated
her knee
We all got together over Chistmas and everyone seemed great
minus the house
After the holidays, Tim's mom fell
hurt the same hurt knee even worse
Went to the hosiptal
They tried to fix it..
so close but not quite
Had to amputate from the knee down
The other day she just had her sixth surgery
His dad is tired and lonely trying to work on the house
It is getting rebuilt
His mom is trying to get healthy and OUT
of the hospital
Meanwhile..back in Chicago
one of the guitar players in Tim's band
decided to quit.
Tim looked at me
and I looked at him
He said..I think I'm done
His parents asked for help
He said, I think we should go
We're moving in May to help TRY to get things
as close to normal as possible..
and relax
and get out of debt
enjoy some fresh air
still get out of debt
try to get in shape
exercise
and stay for several months.
We are going to write music together too..
I will be playing the KEYS.
YAHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
More artwork..
and then who knows.
No babies anytime soon though.

"movin to the country..gonna eat me alotta...pe- TATERS!!"

smile...friday camera time

This is part of an art project I am working on for the frontof a friends vintage clothing store. Good ol Jimi

Part of a pic I put together for our wall. Except its not UP yet.

My trusty squinting eye/pirate eye.

Another part of the project for the store. It is very long. Still lots to do.

Tim introduces me to a lot of weird things.. "have you ever seen this??" "have you heard of this before?" i.e. a game called SNAFU. He tried to describe it to me..."a marble game..but it's made out of plastic..and there are these knobs you turn..and a bridge.." I asked, "you mean like the game Mouse Trap??" he replied, "I've never played that before." BUT...leave it to ebay to have good old SNAFU. and now it sits on our coffee table. and you would like it. I am now slightly obsessed. AND we got dinner with some friends that just had a baby, brought this SNAFU game with us...and the men had a tournament the whole time. now, our friend bought one that night on ebay too.

Nagle rockin out on our friend's keyboard he let us borrow. You can only hear it through head phones (it's a pretty nice one, actually)...so all i hear is a rhythm of tapping keys and look over to see him bouncing around to a tune I can't hear. (his nose is read because he's sick....caught it from me.. oops!)

My new/used boots from Land of the Lost (vintage clothing store). I wear them everywhere. They are old AirWalks...

More of that piece for our wall...basically the right-hand corner.


p.s. I wish you could hear him rockin our on the keyboard. It's all this tapping...no notes. tap-a-tap-a-tap-tap tap-tappity-tap-tap-tap-tap tappa-tap-a-tap-a-tap-tap-tap-sliiiiiiiiide-tap.

i love the little things

Where do we go...

SO...

been lotsa cool things happening these days...
-went to a groovy GENART party down town chicago. Sounds corny but it was my first ritsy/posh/rich people (besides myself) party I've ever been to in chicago. Basically bringing artists and business types together. Sponsered by VO5. 700 people there. free drinks, gift bags,
Djs teaching you how to spin, live music, hair stylists, camera crew...Tim being Tim and me being me. (they did my hair like that, by the way). Basically it's getting to know people and telling them about the Bish AND Michelle's beautiful artwork. I'll put some pics of some stuff up when I get some. (Betcha didn't know that about me, did ya?)

Have another thing to go to tonight. Some art gallery opening...grab some business cards...so on and so forth. I'm still deciding whether I like these get togethers or not. They're fun....but...I'll keep you posted.

been some not so cool things...

-Tim's mom had her leg amputated from the knee down
-someone got ahold of tim's debit card number and bought some tickets to Spain. that is being worked on at the moment.

til next time.

1989 was a good year...

So Timmy and I went to Prom, after all. And who knew we graduated the same year?? 1989...

The story unfolds......

We dressed up in our best 80's gear we could think of..(courtesy of Land Of The Lost..no no..not the show - the vintage clothing store we work at..) and met our friends at this place called Radio Star....and.....went to prom! Basically it's a bar where all the staff that work there (minus the bartenders) are acting like it's prom night, 1989. Sixteen Candles meets the Breakfast Club. There was the Asian exchange student, the cheerleaders, the pot smoking detention getting punk (who tried to sell "pot" to Tim), the jock, the real beefy guy, the nerd, the dorky girl with head gear, the principal, the football coach...and who ever else I missed. So you just grab a bunch of friends, dress up, and dance, talk, drink, mingle amongst all these characters. All 80's music..we even voted for prom king and queen, the coach made a speech, cheerleaders did a routine, a dance off...Michael Jackson even made an appearance (and, of course, danced around with Tim for a while..did you see his jacket?). All in all we had a blast...and did I mention it was all free?? Our friend that we went with, his brother (who is also a friend of ours) is a bartender there...so we didn't drop a dime. Not even for parking..(we found a parking spot..yahoo!!)
Too bad the picture wasn't clearer and a little bigger..so you could get the full effect. I had on a little poofy black dress, a sequence jacket, a purple belt, purple leg warmers, and purple Kangaroos...oh..and a side pony tail to top it off. Tim had a DIO shirt on, the red Thriller jacket, and parachute pants tighter than all get out.

I think we even made out on the dance floor.

Radical.

Lets take a walk!

Found some olds pics. The pileup is my favorite.
Hide-and-go-seek in the dark anyone??

Jump roping on ESPN...who woulda thought?

Dad and Pat just left.
Short but sweet.
Came for breakfast...
a little shopping (YIPEEEEEE!!!!)
jump roping/ice skaing + gymnastics(at the same time)
and back home again.
I determined they will be driving longer then the time they were actually HERE.
Wow..it was great to hang out
but-
thats an awful lot of driving.
My hero.

Miss you guys already!

p.s. I played Guitar Hero again...and I STILL rocked.

Holy one eyed cat, Batman!

Just saw this picture on yahoo news.

The picture wasn't altered in any way.
The little guy was born like that!
Sad...cuz he only lived for a day...
but
I've never seen anything like it.
I think if he were mine..
I would have named him Willie.

Merry-go-Round

Welcome to California in San Diego! There were other family members that came to celebrate..aunts, uncles, cousins...but this pic is of the main gang. Just in case you are curious: Skip is the guy on the far left (Tim's step-bro..we are in his apartment-where all the festivities were held..also, where Tim and I stayed), Rich is next to Skip sitting in the chair (Tim's step-dad..aka "dad"), then you've got Tim and myself and Tim's mom, Rhoda standing behind me, below me is Tim's sister-in-law Megan who is married to the guy sitting next to her whose name is Nate (Tim's other step-brother) and their three kids, Sariah, Rachel and John. Then we've got Tony (Tim's real bro), with his wife, Beth and their daughter Allie. WHEW!

San Diego was beautiful. We had a great time staying with Skip..who cooked a fan-flippin-tastic Christmas dinner! (AND cooked the next day for Tim's B-day) Holy cow....We had turkey, pork, sweet potatoes, green beans with mushrooms, stuffing, mashed potatoes & gravy (my favorite), an amazing salad, this raspberry chutney sorta thing to go with the turkey, pumpkin cheese cake, wine, beer, sparkling juice. All homemade ('cept for the alcohol :) ). It was DELICIOUS!! AND when everyone went back to their hotels and it was just Skip, Tim and I.....talk about some sweet leftovers. Skip was a great host. He took Tim and I out and about, we met a couple of his friends, went to a great piano bar, and woke up with headaches from some great nights out. I learned that he doesn't like being in pictures, though. So this pic was my attempt to be in a picture together. He was doing the dishes. But if you look closely at his face...it looks like he's smiling. I think he secretly LIKES to be in pictures..
This is the little balcony/porch where we all had Christmas dinner. There was a bigger table decorated just like this one to the right. And we all had assigned seats...heh heh. The sunny 60 degree weather was a nice touch too.
On Christmas Eve we all went to Sea World, which I have to say is the weirdest thing I've ever done on Christmas Eve. Watching dolphins swim rather than watching snow fall. We all had a great time. Tim and I snuck away for a little bit and saw a 3-D movie and play in the Sea World arcade...you know how much we love video games. (My favorite are the ones where you win the tickets!)
Nothing too outrageous happened. They are a funny family though. That picture at the top of the whole gang took a while to get everyone together. We all KNOW how taking family pictures can be. So right before that pic was taken, when I heard Rhoda say "Lets get a picture of everyone," I started video taping with our digital camera just to see how long it would take everyone to get situated. It was 3 solid minutes of: "Okay..come over here.""Now Rhoda will be in the back.""Come on girls.""Allie, come here, please.""Okay, okay..pardon me.""Right, well where are we facing?""Rachel, Sariah, come sit please.""Who's taking the picture?""Uncle Don, he's got it.""Okay, are we ready?""Let me just move over here.""Can we all fit?" The video is hilarious.
I'd have to say that one of the highlights was a simple little walk Tim and I took on Christmas morning. We walked around the neighborhood and everyone was SO friendly. (A lot different than Chicago, where most people don't like making eye contact). It was BEAUTIFUL out there. SO many different kinds of plants and trees and flowers and everything was GREEN...and growing..full of life. We just walked around, talked some of the time, and soaked it all up.

I missed my family very much. Merry Christmas.

NOWADAYS:

The Bish just played at this venue called the METRO this past Saturday. It is a fantastic venue and pretty encouraging that they played there. Word on the street is there were around 700 people there. That was the biggest crowd they've every played for. Ye-ha! There were four other bands that played BUT Timmy's band was the only one that had an approx 16ft x 16ft screen behind them that had crazy fast moving visuals displayed on it. Choreographed by....ME! I was the little video DJ for the Bish. Together: music + visuals = a great great great show. Here's a pic from the show.






LAST BUT NOT LEAST:
My new favorite video game...that I do not own YET is: GUITAR HERO!
I played it for the first time last night with some friends...all boys, mind you. And they were very impressed with my GIRL skills. I think I ALMOST did the best.....almost.

Until next time, Guitar Hero.