Autumn

Autumn is the prettiest season in my opinion.  At least if you have maples and other beautiful deciduous trees where you live.  I follow a blog called Seattle Daily Photo so I can get a little taste of home.  The blogger has some great photography and I'm always inspired.  She's recently posted some beautiful photos of autumn in Seattle, specifically trees changing color before their leaves fall.  Makes me homesick.

This is interesting because I was thinking about trees earlier today as well.  My case study group and I visited our project site in Woodside, CA.  Woodside is small town right next to Palo Alto and it's beautiful there.  The drive down took us through a valley covered in evergreens which I am not used to seeing in California.  Then we saw the lake in the valley reflecting the trees and causing a light fog a couple of layers up.  In the immortal words of Don Swearingen, "so fine."  It just reminded me of home and how much I dislike the dust covering the hills of San Luis Obispo and how wonderful it is when after the winter rains, suddenly the dust is green.

It was a beautiful day and the property the house is on is awesome!  Tennis courts, pool, huge yard, barn, long gated drive, it's like there should be this huge mansion on the hill.  I'm glad there isn't.  This house is big, but not huge and I think it fits well into the landscape.  The house itself it definitely a little funky because it's been through so many remodels, but it's still a nice house.  Unfortunately, I didn't take some good photos of the front but that's not the good part.

 

View from the future living room to the central patio.  These sliding doors are original and will stay.  They will be mirrored on the other side of this room as well which is the front entry to the house.  Should make a great indoor/outdoor space.

 

Kitchen/living room.  It's pretty nice but was definitely added on.  It's in a completely different style than the rest of the house.

 

Kitchen.  If I had taken a better photo, this kitchen could be in a magazine. 

 

Patio off future living room and game room.

 

Huge backyard.  I could see so many awesome birthday parties in this backyard.

  

Pool house.  Sort of reminded me of the Neptune pool at Hearst Castle.  That's not to say that this is extremely over the top because it's not, I just got that vibe. 

After touring the house and property, we went to the principal architect's house nearby because it's currently under construction and our mentor wanted us to be able to experience that.  It was cool to see a house under construction and it was nice, but it wasn't amazing.  I'm sure I'd feel differently if it were closer to being done.  

After touring that house, we went and saw some other projects that he has done in the area.  He's done a lot of houses in Woodside, it's kind of crazy.

When I got back to my firm, I had a quiet day of editing drawings and images.  I'm really ahead on my pet project and they don't seem to have a lot for me to do.  I finally have some other things to do.  Right now I'm editing plans and sections for a press kit.  Basically removing on the technical information and making them look pretty.  I also had to track down some images and format them for a magazine article being written about the firm.  A few days ago I was searching for photos on google images for a brochure being put out for a blossoming non-profit.  Looking at some much photography has been making me really want to get into that hobby and/or profession.

The afternoons seem to drag on so slowly at the office.   Today, Karen, who interns at the firm right next door to mine, called me and told me go outside for a second.  She came out and gave me a cookie!  Dark chocolate chip cookie with sea salt sprinkled on top.  While I don't like dark chocolate truffles with sea salt, the cookie was delicious.  I felt so honored because I don't really know Karen.  We walk to the bus together in a group after class so we've had minor interaction, but earlier this week she suggested we take the bus together to class.  We talked about baking and she mentioned that she wanted to bake more because she gets bored in the evening (what? I guess it helps when your commute is only a half hour as opposed to 1.5 hours.  She's also Karen and has a reputation for being amazing).  I never thought she'd randomly bring me a cookie in the middle of the day.  Totally awesome!  Great way to start off the weekend!

November is here!

First of all, congrats to the Giants for winning the world series!  Being from Seattle, I've never experienced my team winning the championship (go Mariners!) and the vibe of the city was really cool to see.  I don't follow sports much because I have other things I'd rather do, but I'll get into it if there's a game on and I have my teams that I root for.  I was pulling for the Giants and it was great to see them get it done.

November is here (already?) and that means Thanksgiving is in a few weeks!  Thanksgiving is by far my favorite holiday for a few reasons.  1. All the delicious food!!  2. Great time to catch up with family, although not so much this year since we're scattered all over the place.  And 3. -The Tie-Breaker, No pressure to get the perfect gift.  Secret reason 4.  The day after kicks off my Christmas preparations starting by breaking out my Christmas Music playlist.  Can't wait! 

 This week has been a little up and down.  I've been working on layouts for the marketing publication.  I spent all day Tuesday and Wednesday morning feeling like I'm just going around in circles trying to find something I like that's different from what I've already got.  Then Wednesday afternoon I got a break by tidying up the materials library.  So dusty.  It was nice though.  My mentor prefaced with "I've got a left-brained activity for you," and I remembered that I really am left-brain dominant.  Organizing, math, and music are my strong points.  Creativity, not so much. Yesterday I could have really gotten into reorganizing their whole library, which is really out of order.

I spent this morning continuing my quest for an alternative layout.  I had a case study meeting with Arcanum which I enjoyed.  I think I enjoy those meetings because it's like listening to a story.  A story about a historic house remodel, but to me it's riveting.

Last night was our case study mid-term presentation.  It did not go well.  Myself and my team are mostly to blame (one didn't show), but so is our professor and our case study mentor.  Our mentor is great but keeps our meetings to an hour which isn't enough time, and repeats herself.  We hadn't gotten much of a chance to ask questions, but we also hadn't formulated them.  My professor shouldn't have shown so much disappointment because I specifically asked her what she wanted for the presentation and she said "Nothing specific, just show progress.  I know you guys have been busy settling into your firms."  I guess we didn't make enough progress.  So today we spent our whole meeting going over what we need for the presentation.  

After the meeting I went back MHA for a lunch and learn.  I got to hear a guy talk about cement board, look at samples, and get free food!  I arrived late and missed the first part of the presentation but I wondered if it was the guy's first day, because he was not very good.  He didn't have a presentation up, he was switching back and forth between photo albums to show examples of the product.  Later, everyone else said he was awful.  Poor guy.  

After lunch, I talked with my mentor about the layouts for the publication and I finally get to move onto making mock-ups or two partis.  I was miserable on this project before when I felt like I was doing the same thing over and over and I thought it was the project or my short attention span, but I really think I just want to feel like I'm making progress.  After talking with my mentor and moving on I started enjoying it again and I was able to focus.  I just find it interesting how when I think I hate everything about architecture and start thinking about what I'm going to do once I graduate and can be done with this, I start to like it and get sucked back in.  Sounds like an abusive boyfriend.