{a few instagram photos from the last few weeks}

Oh this week. This week felt long and short, boring and hectic, good and stupid-- all at the same time. Now that I'm sitting down to think about it, I'm having a hard time even remembering parts of it? Ryan likes to call that "pregnancy brain." He shouts it out from time to time when I can't recall certain words or abruptly stop talking mid-sentence. It makes me feel nice and smart. No, it doesn't.

But I used my brain in other ways this week! Good ways! Because, dear ones,  I had all sorts of brain storms, like I had my very own Hurricane Amelia all up in there, writing lists and making plans. It was the exciting, pacing, frustrating kind of brainstorming, where there are lots of fantastic ideas going on but no satisfying immediate results-- nothing will actually become of it all for a long time. But I've got scribbles in notebooks, and my sketchbook is filling up, and tomorrow I'm going to the store to buy new tubes of gouache and more bright, cottony watercolor paper. It feels good!

Oh! And guess what else! I've been experiencing what people like to call the Braxton-Hicks contractions. It's not cool, I don't know why I'm making it sound so exciting. They started last night, along with some annoying ligament stretching, and continued when I woke up this morning. I called the doctor, and was told that it's probably nothing serious, but to drink lots of water and get to the hospital if I had more than eight contractions in two hours, which thankfully didn't need to happen. There have been a few stragglers, but nothing consistent, and little baby has been kicking right through them. I'm choosing not to worry, and telling myself that I'm just slightly dehydrated. Because that would also explain the reason for my hamstrings cramping up while walking from the car to our apartment last night. So! My feet are up and my water glass is full and the bathroom trips are frequent. Doctor's/ mom's/ sister's/ Ryan's orders.

How's that for the first and last blog post of this week? Happy weekend everybody! I'll be spending mine drinking water.

p.s. my instagram name is @ameliamarthelia, if you care to follow along. i promise it's not just a bunch of photos of my food. but i won't lie, there's a lot of that.

a date at the museum

Edgar Degas, Three Dancers in Yellow Skirts

For the past month, these terribly beautiful commercials have been appearing on TV featuring the MAM's new exhibit, Impressionism: Masterworks on Paper. It plays Clair de Lune the whole time, and I feel fancy just watching it. I had been wanting and wishing (and hinting) to go, but I knew Ryan wouldn't be crazy about the ticket price. That is, until the stars aligned and the heavens opened and I was moved to check the website for more information. Free on the first Thursday of the month? Open until 8pm? Well, golly.

When Ryan got home from work last Thursday, we walked to the museum and spent a glorious two hours there. Oh it was fantastic. I forgot how much I really love the Impressionist artists. Cezanne! Van Gogh! Renoir! And that Degas, he really is something. I was able to get my nose up in those pieces and study them, which I'm sure was terribly impolite to the other museum goers. Seeing them in person allowed me to notice things that I never did in books or on the screen in class -- some of the works were done on what looked like brown paper bags, and even cardboard! And they were beautiful! I was reminded of gesture drawing. My fingers itched to dig out my charcoal and pastels. It felt good. The best part was that with all of this art class knowledge flooding back into my brains, I was able to impress Ryan with some truly fantastic facts:

Ryan: "This piece was done in gouache. How do you say that? Gowsh?"

Me: "No, darling. It's pronounced gwash."

Right?? I wasn't an art major for nothing.

We weren't able to take pictures in the exhibit, but it was allowed in the other parts of the museum. While I admired the paintings and drawings, engineer Ryan inspected the architecture. It really is such a beautiful museum.