just married!

fascination

Too much has been going on lately to keep up, so rather than giving an update now I'll share my lunchtime activity from today. All you have to do is google "Square Watermelon." I want one.

an old friend

To some, this image may feel all too familiar. This is dedicated to my studio mates. I miss all of you! And in some strange way, I sort of miss those sleepless nights as well...Alright, maybe I enjoy my sleep too much for that part to be true.

my recent find - texas sunsets

One of the great things about moving to north Austin (aka: south Dallas) has been the greater views of the sky. Almost every day while I wait to turn onto the main street in front of my neighborhood I see something similar to these photos. More than rain the storms have brought in some amazing clouds.

single for 30 more days...

Updated Singles' calendar for the Fall. Not sure if they'll keep asking me to do these after September, but it has been fun while it lasted!

the new us

Inspired by another friend's blog who posted a great photo from her grandparents' wedding day. This is not my grandparents' wedding picture, but just a sweet picture of them together. They were so in love...She's been gone for almost 15 years and he says he still thinks of her every day.

charleston

Doug and I just returned from our last trip of the summer. We have been travelling around visiting and meeting eachother's families - New Mexico, Michigan and just recently, South Carolina. It was well worth the time and energy to meet everyone before the big day. And I think we both felt at home no matter what state we were in.

As you can see I have posted some pictures from Charleston of Mason, Carter and Doug. Carter loved his "uncle Doug". He also loved talking about his "friends" Bitty and Go-Go. :)

Mason was as cute as a ever...he just might be walking by the end of September!

The last picture is of a company our firm is working for in Austin. Maybe some day I will be able to post some pictures of the project I've been working on for them...

doorbell

Tell me you have a suggestion for modern doorbell covers! All I can seem to find is the spOre version, which seems a little tech-y for our friendly-modern homes.

the good stuff

Part of me wants this to be my everyday. Not necessarily planning a wedding. Form. Function. Organization.

Sigh. Just design.

only 64 days to go...

So, it seems incredibly silly to be sharing all my new furniture on the web, but why not. My posts are basically meant to share all the silly things that happen in my life. I suppose this post emphasizes the importance of design. Or at the very least the obvious enjoyment of it.

A recent consignment store find. The new bed arrives today! I'll post pictures of the updated "master retreat" this week.

Doug and I both have nephews. By the time we are married there will be 6 boys total! While we love them all, it's fun to have a girl or two in the mix...Luckily our very close friends and neighbors are expecting a little girl a few weeks before the wedding, we'll consider her our adopted niece :)

This is a picture from our recent trip to New Mexico to visit his brother, sister in law and nephew. We drove into the mountains to see Silverton, Colorado. The whole drive back, this little guy kept saying my name in his New Zealand accent (his mum is from there...) "Jessss-i-ca"..."Jesssssss-i-ca?"....Jesss-i-ca!?" Oh so cute!

paint worthy

I took this image last night while awaiting a night shot of one of our recently completed projects. With all the rain and humidity lately the clouds have been amazing.

a glimpse into construction admin

The stress of going to school did more to prepare me for real world stress than anything else in my life up to this point; but I have to say we still had it pretty easy in school. Sure the professors were demanding and it seemed unreasonable. But try telling your client he's being too demanding. Or that the interior designer is being unreasonable.

School does little to prepare us for being in a service industry. Learning to please the aesthetics of your peers, professors and yourself above all is no longer an option. Now you must meet the unreasonable deadline, maintain the budget while selecting on the most beautiful option, create a friendly relationship with the salty contractor...the reward? A building ready for the glossy pages of a magazine and a pat on the back.

Do I sound bitter? Maybe a little. But I love my job. And I know I am lucky to have it.

More fun: Here are some images of the issues in the current house I'm working on. Luckily none of these are my fault, just the result of selecting the contractor with the lowest bid. Architects beware.

dylan's ode to trump

put it back together

a challenge...

If you like a design challenge, I encourage you to play along with my friend Jamie (diamond in the rough) and me. The idea is based on this website: www.explodingdog.com. Basically the rules are, there are no rules. This is your chance to design something without any time or cost constraints. Just pretend you are a true artist.

This week's phrase is: "Put it back together"

We'll be posting our versions on our blogs in the following days...Ready, set, go!

sketch up

Those of you who frequent Jackie's blog will not be easily impressed (she's got mad skills!), but here's a quick rendering I created in the last few hours at work. It was built in CAD, perspectified in Sketch-up and rendered in Photoshop. The space shown is a condo renovation. Our design intention is to open up the space a bit and create "purpose-made" cherry units...Similar to the images from a recently completed projct (below).

book promotion

For all of those zany artist-types out there, here's a very fun website.

season of change

My fiance and I have just purchased our first house together. The closing was yesterday. I almost suffered a panic attack this weekend when thinking about how much money was leaving our hands and all the changes going on in our lives right now. It will truly be a year of adventure.

So many things need to change before I am really happy with the place. We're planning to put in new carpet and hardwood floors (just a notch above the Pergo that is there already). Sometimes it is hard to enjoy something that is such a blessing, because we are trained to be so critcal. Ah, but we will make it our own and enjoy every minute!

Pictures to follow in June.

venezia

First female 'gondolier,' though they refuse to give her the official title.

made in Texas

Arcade Fire...in an elevator. Enjoy.

show and tell

Hooray! The lovely Save the Date cards have begun production. I designed the Save the Date cards and commissioned a lady who does letterpress from Esty.com. We have been working on the cards for about two months. As it is always rewarding to see a finished product, it seemed worth sharing. Graphic design fills the need for "instant" gratification...Somehow it rarely happens at all in architecture...

I'm in love.

Well, yes with Doug. But also with this website. Thanks for the tip, Brad.

saturday afternoon at 'the studio'

this picture was taken a while back, but shows the emptiness saturdays bring. but it is oh-so-refreshing to get work done without the phones ringing!

Prayer of St Francis

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;
where there is hatred, let me sow love;
where there is injury, pardon;
where there is doubt, faith;
where there is despair, hope;
where there is darkness, light;
and where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love;
for it is in giving that we receive,
it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.
Amen.

wedding website

www.carterandconnolly.weddings.com

photo shoot

This is from a photo shoot at one of our recently completed projects. When the photographer was busy setting up his fancy equipment, I snuck outside and snapped my own shots.

day dreaming

Just thinking about my new place, with my new husband and my new life...We're definitely going to need to add color somehow!

pies

All things look better in "tiny":

http://www.notmartha.org/tomake/tinypies

kindergarten

Does anyone else have flashbacks of snack-time when drinking from a carton of milk? Lately I have been addicted to Vanilla Silk soy milk and only buy milk in a quart for baking needs. I just had a glass of milk (not even directly from the carton) and it tasted like kindergarten all over again. Ah, the good ol' days. If only I could take a plastic mat to work with me for a good nap...

Good Friday

Today seems like a day one should take off from work and reflect. Instead, I am reflecting from my desk. I did however come across some interesting information I had never heard before on randomhouse.com:

"Lee Sutherland wrote:

I've heard more than once that goodbye is a contraction of "God be with ye," and even that it was a slang word that came into wide use while being strongly frowned upon by upright Christian citizens. Where does it really come from?

Yes, goodbye (or good-bye) is a contraction of "God be with ye (you)." The first use of a contracted form of "God be with ye" is recorded in a letter written by Gabriel Harvey in 1575: "To requite your gallonde of godbwyes, I regive you a pottle of howedyes." From the 16th to the 18th century, this contraction was spelled in many different ways: godbwye, god b'uy, god buye, god b'wy. The change from god to good, reflected in the spelling good-bye/good-by, was not fully established until the beginning of the 19th century, probably influenced by previously existing phrases such as "good day" and "good night."

Another example of the change from god to good is Good Friday, originally written god Friday,god to good? Though derived from different Indo-European roots, the words god/God and good were usually spelled identically (as god) in Middle English, and so there was confusion and overlap between these two words. The spelling good first appeared about 1250, becoming the established spelling about 1450. Adding to the confusion was the obvious notion that God is good.

According to the century-old Century Dictionary, good-bye was "originally a pious form of valediction, used in its full significance, but now a mere conventional formula without meaning, used at parting." Actually good-bye was a rather new English word at the time the Pilgrims sailed for America. According to Stuart Flexner, former editor-in-chief of Random House Dictionaries, "Slang is as old as English itself...American kids have been speaking a language of their own since they annoyed their Pilgrim parents at Plymouth Rock...It offended Puritan parents that their Pilgrim children took their traditional farewell--God be with you--and turned it into good-bye."

There are many other examples of the contraction of a phrase into a word. In fact the excerpt from Gabriel Harvey's letters quoted above has another familiar contraction: the form howedye (now spelled howdy) comes from the phrase "How do ye?" And in another of Harvey's letters, he writes: "Youre Latine Farewell is a goodly brave yonkerly piece of work, and goddilge yee, I am always marvellously beholding unto you, for your bountifull Titles." Here, goddilge yee, an obsolete expression of gratitude, is yet another example of a contraction, this one from the phrase "God yield (or reward) you." "

God be with you - Jess

recent publications

field trip

It is a rare occasion I leave my desk in the office at 14th and Rio Grande. But when the opportunity is presented, I seize it. The other thing I rarely pass up is a good tour of a home. Any home will do. But especially modern.

This house was built in the late 1930s. As you can see in the photos, the first party they threw at the house was New Year's Eve, 1940. The paintings/decorations are still on the wall. Not much has actually been changed in the house. A couple of window units were added and a swing in the back.

The Bown house, as it is known in Austin, was recently featured in a local magazine. It's too bad the pictures are not on the website because it was a particularly beautiful shoot. Especially in the basement; i.e. the Blue Room. This house would be a great location for a horror movie once it is renovated.

dinner out

Recent work for the church.

the dress

Yeah right, like I would give that away. I don't even know what I'm going to wear yet! But, I did find a beautiful dress online and it should be here tomorrow. What a relief it would be to find two big things for the wedding all in one week.

My life is quite obviously wrapped up in wedding plans right now. But not for too much longer. It is amazing how it can become such a strain, the one thing that should be enjoyed to it's fullest has become stressful in our culture. Go figure.

the venue

We have chosen our venue. Thurman's Mansion. It's an old rustic house just outside of Austin. We stopped by on a cloudy day, so the images do little justice. We knew it was right when we walked into the main room and saw the huge free-standing bar. Very cool.

canopy tour

After reading a recent friend's blog telling how annoying it is to check other friends' blogs and see no update, I have decided I should remedy my current situation. Although, maybe planning a wedding is a good excuse, but it's not one I've had in the past so I should not bother with trying to use it as one.

These are photos from a canopy tour my fiance, Doug and I went on for my birthday. The guides take you on a zip-line course through huge cedar trees following a creek. It was beautiful.

My favorite photo shows two trees intertwined to form a dam during drought. Natural ingenuity.

**For anyone with allergies the symptoms can be quite severe up there in the trees, but it's oh so worth it.

doug goes to springfield

This photo was taken just after landing in the Springfield airport a few months ago. I love it, because it so beautifully captures the awe and utter confusion Doug had as he first laid eyes on the poster of Shoji Tabuchi which I had to explain had been in the exact same spot for at least 10 years and even though his daughter looked like she was 12, she is in fact my age) My brother-in-law probably remembers having a similar reaction to the Branson posters, thinking "is this for real?"

office portfolio

This page is pulled from a recent portfolio I have been working on for the office.
It is a compliation of many publications we have had in the past year.

diddy

So, if you know me well enough, you probably know my sense of humor

is quite silly. Maybe even a little nerdy. Luckily I have found someone who

will love me despite and because of my quirks...or as he says, because

I'm "sweet". He gave me this adorable bear as an early Valentines gift.

When he asked me what his name is, I said hmmm "Bee-Diddy"? I know,

it's a stretch...