Back in Action

Hello everyone! We are back and ready to go! The vacation in West Palm was great. It felt good to just sit and relax. I read 4 books, sat in the sun, went swimming, and had fruity cocktails. No photos though. I made it a point to not even bring my camera (gasp!) I am now refreshed and ready to work. I have quite a list of tasks to do today; so I'm jumping right in! I will need to catch up on some of my favorite blogs at some point as well. I hope all is well with everyone! Have a great day!

Happy April!

Howdy! It's the first day of April; Spring is here and warmer weather is in sight. I think I'm coming down with the cold my husband had. But I'll stay in denial and hope it just goes away. I got word back from NA Graphics...the vendor doing my letterpress rollers said I should have them by this coming Thursday...YAY! Then I'll be back in action. They will be rubber this time; so they won't constantly shrink from the cold. Monday I have a web tutorial session with my friend's husband who teaches web design and digital photo/color balancing, etc. etc. I have a bunch of questions and am excited to have someone sitting with me to shed light on the confusing web world for me. As I redo my company website, this will all be helpful information. I'm so tired of scouring books and the internet and still coming up short with what I want to know. Me and a friend/associate are going to a paper show on Wednesday up in Portsmouth, NH (not far away). It will be nice to learn some new things about paper and get plenty of creative eye candy to peruse. I know. I'm lame. But graphic designers get excited about things like paper. It's out of my control. Hopefully I'll have more exciting things to post about soon! I'm off to research lined envelopes now (anyone know where I can get cool A7-sized lined envelopes???) Have a Happy April Fools' Day!

Spring? I think not.

Last week we had this amazing day where it was 70 degrees. Here in New England, in March, that is very rare. It was so exciting! The next thing you know, 2 or 3 days later, we are buried in the most snow we've had all winter. I don't have photos of beautiful spring growth to share (like everyone else seems to have on their blogs lately). I have piles of snow mounded everywhere. No budding plants. No warm breezes. I'm so jealous of the people who have bits of plant growth to photograph. That won't likely happen around here for another month or so. It will come soon enough I suppose. The up side is that daylight savings has given us longer evenings now; I feel so much more alert when it's like this! Not much new going on here. Yesterday we organized our pantry...it had looked like a bomb went off in it. After watching some Style network home shows we got inspired and off to "The Container Store" we went. We got a great "over the door" storage unit for our pantry door that freed up a lot of space. A few hours later, we had reorganized our pantry AND went through our old crappy "Glad" containers that needed to finally get thrown out. You know...the pile of containers and lids that spill out of the cabinet and you go crazy trying to find the matching lid when you need it... Well, we went through and fixed the problem. With our new pantry space, we put the lids on the nice food storage containers we wanted to keep, and stacked them all on the bottom shelf so we can see them all and never struggle with lids again. If this is the biggest triumph of my week, I'll still be satisfied. I'm now off to tackle some work...I'm designing a wedding invitation, a baby shower invitation (with matching thank -you cards), and some other projects. Have a great day!

Polaroid love

Hi everyone! I'm back in action working at home again. This month I am designing concepts for a wedding, an adoption family album, a birth announcement, and a baby shower/thank you notes set. All of these are the most fun kinds of design and I'm excited to get started! I've decided to spin my business more in this direction (and still offer corporate design too). I'm thrilled about the future! I tried to do some letterpress work this past weekend and it just won't work right now. One of my freakin' rollers melted (long story) so I have to try and order all new rollers. ARG. I will order rubber rollers this time and hope that they are consistent and work. Letterpressing has been very frustrating for me so far. But, when it worked (however briefly) I loved it. I just have to keep at it and know that it will work out for me soon. My parents visited me recently and Dad brought me his Polaroid Land Camera (230). He got it when he was in Vietnam for the war; from a general store for the soldiers. He says a guy called Smitty helped him get it going. I love that. Circa 1968-1969. The battery (probably close to original) is corroded inside the chamber so I have to try and clean it up and then locate a new kind of battery to use. I'm excited to get it going and I hope it works. I'll post on it, of course, once I know and I'll be sure to show the photos. This weekend I actually didn't work. My friend Sue came to visit and the three of us went snow-tubing at Nashoba Ski area in our town. It was so fun; as it was my first time. As a child I always used a plastic rectangular sled on our hill at my parents' house. On occasion I'd go with a friend to some "extreme" hilly golf courses and sled there too. But those were more like cliffs; so I called it "extreme sledding." The snow tubing park had very particular lanes and the hill was long and high compared to what I was used to. I about had a heart attack on the first run since it was so icy and fast. Once I got used to the speed I had a blast. We're definitely going back! As the time went by, the slope started getting a bit melted from the balmy 48 degree weather so the sledding got a bit slower. We're looking forward to it getting a little colder outside so we can go back and have prime speed. :)

Busy Weekending!

Hello everyone! This morning I was taking off my deep red nail polish when I heard a knock at the door. I bounded down the stairs with my tissue soaked in polish-remover and already red-stained. (That stuff is SO HARD to get off!) There was a friendly looking guy on our porch with his Bible and pamphlets. It was cold out so I decided to give him a break and let him give me a pamphlet. He stared down at my hands and looked back up at me puzzled. He left pretty quickly and I thought; "Wow, that's the fastest Jehovah's Witness visit ever!" (I like to be friendly to these people because they are trying to do something for their faith; which is better than trying to rob me. And I've gotta give them credit for standing behind their religion even if I'm faithful to my own.) I shut the door and realized that my fingers looked bloody; as did the deep red tissue. Heh heh. He thought he walked in on some sort of crime scene when the real crime was my choosing deep red nail polish. I'm repentant! It's a busy weekend of working ahead. I haven't had much time for rest and relaxation lately. I've been in Boston working for a client every day (it's a 2-hour commute time each way) and I've been working on my own work and other client work during my weekends. I've got a big presentation next week that I am preparing for and need to finish designing a whole bunch of things today and tomorrow. Rush Rush Rush!!! Hopefully I can stop and breath soon...so much going on in my head! I thought I would post a few photos today. The first is of the beloved Chili made for me by my husband on Valentine's Day. (Thanks again!!) It's made with pulled pork...which I don't normally like, but is so good in chili. I also posted a photo after the latest snow we had. I just loved the morning sky looking up in our back yard. And finally; me in my office. Looking tired; no makeup, hair in a mishapen bun, and ready to work through the weekend. Have a good one, all!

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day everyone! It is snowy here; we're having a bit of a storm come through. I decided not to travel into the city today; so I'm working here at home. Lots to do! I decided to take a break and write... I won't spoil the Valentines Day surprises, but I CAN say that my husband is making me my special chili (mentioned a few posts ago). I will be sure to take pictures of it this time. It's in the crock pot now and smells good. *sigh* I'm very excited. I never knew food could make me so elated. I'd never much cared one way or the other about food. It's also tax time! Our accountant is coming over tomorrow night to help weed through the jungle of papers and forms. I've tried to stay as organized as possible with everything so hopefully it will go smoothly. My first year of freelancing went well (for what I had hoped anyway). And thankfully my sometimes anal-retentive ways have helped me via a detailed excel spreadsheet where all my numbers and figures are recorded. I hope the tax faerie is nice to me and doesn't need to audit us. I've tried so hard to make sure everything is perfect. But it still makes me worry. Maybe I can slip her a few bucks under my pillow tonight to make sure we have an understanding.

Anyhoo, I'm happy to be safely indoors today. Drivers around here are nuts on the highways. I know; I'm one of them. But at least I'm a polite driver. And I'm always careful. You can be crazy AND careful. It's an art. I'm also glad to not be on the T. (The subway system in Boston). There's always "that person" nearby picking his/her nose. ALWAYS. And I find myself wondering why they seem to think nobody would see them. "You're in an open public space!!" I've wanted to yell. But I suffer and gag in silence. There's also "that guy" on the train who tries to use slick lines like "hey, I've seen you on this train a few times and wanted to say hi, so hi!". Or "hey cutie". Or some other phrase that's delivered in an overly friendly, slightly patronizing way. I'm not a mean person, so I smile and say hello politely. And then I stare at my shoe.

Meanwhile my inner dialogue says: "look dude, I'm trying to friggin' get to work. I'd drive my car; but this place is a traffic disaster from hell. So I'm stuck on the train watching the nose picker while I gag. I'm happily married...see my ring? And I don't see you on the train because I'm thinking about my day ahead. I'm not scoping the scene trying to pick up strangers. Please don't follow me when I get off the train. And please don't get mad that I'm not giving in to your advances...I don't want to be found dead in a trash can somewhere. But I'm sure you're a nice person."