Entries from February 2009 ↓

Frans Lanting’s nature photography is the subject of the current exhibit at the Bell Museum of Natural History. Lanting’s photos have a deeply scientific interpretation and incredible beauty.

If you happened to catch the exhibit Touch the Sky from Jim Brandenburg a couple years ago, you’ll definitely enjoy this exhibit as well.

Frans Lanting will be giving an all-day nature photography seminar on March 21st. Anyone want to buy me a ticket?

My friend, Kelsey, and her family were in Minneapolis (technically Bloomington) over the weekend for the Mall of America’s Knit Out and Crochet 2008 event. I joined them Sunday morning to check out the festivities, get some free stuff, and be inspired by other crafters.

(Clicking on that last image will show you everything I took home, with detailed notes.)

And, of course, I had to get my photo taken with the Lion Brand Yarn mascot:

Also, since this was a craft-related post, here is a reminder that you can still sign up to receive a gift from me.

The 2nd annual Art Sled Rally took place yesterday in Powderhorn Park. I attended with the intention of rooting on Team Premium, but all of the sleds were so awesome that I had to root for everyone!

Team Premium did have one of the best crashes of the day, however:

This was one of the better weekends for winter in Minnesota—the sun was shining and temperatures were above (or right around?) freezing, but it wasn’t warm enough to be disgustingly melty and soggy yet. It was all very lovely and perfect for hot cocoa!

Salon Saloon is a new program brought to you by Andy Sturdevant, Shanai Matteson, and Colin Kloecker. I attended Tuesday night’s first event, “Ice Breaker.” Guests talked about German mountain films, bicycling during the winter (notably in the Twin Cities, of course), and sculpting ice. Chilly topics, but a fun event! I’m looking forward to the next programs, planned for first Tuesdays at the Nomad World Pub.

Last weekend I made my second trip to the annual Saintly City Cat Club’s Winter Carnival cat show. My sister, Karyn, and I went to the show in 2002 (I think), when we lived in downtown Saint Paul. This year I went with my friend (and fellow cat lover), Bertine.

It is a strange event. There are hundreds of cats and none of them are fighting. Many of them are sleeping, in fact. Most of the owners (or handlers?) were mingling, preparing their cats for judging, or quietly going crazier. Bertine and I wandered around to peek at all of the cats and scope out the craziest of the crazy cat people. I wasn’t very good at taking stealth photographs of those people, but believe me—they stood out in the crowd.

There were six large judging stations in the middle of the auditorium. Bertine and I tried to listen to all of them, but mostly hung out with Walter Hutzler while he was judging the kitten division. He seemed to be one of the most talkative judges, and had funny (i.e. crazy) anecdotes for each breed of cat.

I took a few tips and tricks home with me as I developed a new career goal for myself: cat show judge! It’s time for me to start studying the differences between Burmese and British Shorthair, Ocicat and Bengal, Cornish Rex and Devon Rex…