Goals and Garden Shows

Today I crossed a big goal off my list. I transferred my mailing list over to one of those mass mailing services. It is so cool! It gives you stats on how many have been opened, clicked through, bounced and who has unsubscribed. I love it. It took me quite a while to import and add all my newest addees and to learn how to do the html stuff. Before this I was having to send them out 10 at a time and it was taking me forever. I am so glad to have this done. Feels good.

I am doing the Zilker Garden Festival this weekend. I had to set up my tent this afternoon. Here's hoping it doesn't blow away! The forecast says that the winds could get up to 25 mph tonight. I anchored it with my homemade weights and tables. It is supposed to be rainy in the morning but should clear up by the afternoon and Sunday is supposed to be sunny and gorgeous. I am excited about the festival. From the looks of it this afternoon there are going to be tons of great plants for sale there. Maybe I can do some shopping too!

Had lunch with Celia today who may be interning for me next year. I really hope it works out. She has a great energy and I could use the help.

I feel like I have a cold or something. A few days ago, I did a major dusting in our house, including the lanterns in the living room. I thought maybe I was having an allergic reaction to the dust but today I feel that stuffy, confused feeling in my head. No, no, no!

Home from San Francisco

San Francisco was such a great trip! The show was on Saturday. I spent most of the day doing that. Sold some pieces and met lots of new people. Made friends with all the designers at neighboring tables. It was a lot of fun. I was so tired after the show. I wanted to go out for dinner and maybe see a play but I was afraid I would fall asleep! I looked up a neat restaurant but unfortunately they were all booked when I got there so I just walked around and took pictures.

On Sunday, one of my neighbors at the show, Jennifer, had invited me to join her and some friends to go see the Vivienne Westwood exhibit at the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park. That was so much fun. I didn't know much about Vivienne Westwood before but, wow, what an amazing woman. The show was super inspiring with tons of great clothing, footwear and videos of her fashion shows. It was neat to hang out with Jennifer and her friends, Sandra and Amelia. Jennifer has a store in the Mission area called Porcelynne. She has her living quarters and studio in the back which was really cool. She makes lingerie! It was fun getting to ride around in the back of Sandra's car, seeing the city.

After the show we had lunch at a neat little cafe and then I had to catch my plane home. It was such a nice trip, made even better by the making of new friends.

Met Amy B. and Victoria for coffee again yesterday. We are definitely applying for Renegade! Fingers crossed.

My poor pup is not feeling well. He started limping last week so I took him to the vet before my trip. The vet gave him some medicine for arthritis which didn't sit well on his stomach. This morning I woke up to some rather disturbing business on the floor so having cleaned that all up and completely disinfected the area, we are going back to the vet! Poor thing!

Lovely day in San Francisco

Today was lovely! I boarded my plane at 8:00 and got here around noon. Despite mean bus drivers and a bird that pooped on me, I managed to have a great day walking around Pacific Heights area, taking pictures. I walked up and down Filmore Street, going in and out of amazing stores. I had coffee at an outside cafe, walked through a beautiful park from which I could see the bay. There were all kinds of people out enjoying the beautiful day, playing with their dogs, lying on a blanket, reading a book. I wandered over to Japantown and went into the Japan Center which is this really cool indoor mall of Japanese restaurants and stores. Most of the restaurants had plastic representations of their food in the front window. I had a great dinner - Uno Don, eel on rice! Then I walked back to the hotel in the dark. Just a really super nice day.

In praise of pants.

This morning I had that really great feeling of putting on my pants and having them fit perfectly. You know how sometimes they're kind of tight and you have to sit around in them so they stretch out, well, not this morning. Pants are just the greatest thing. I have worn skirts for so long and now I am just starting to wear pants again. I think they are a good gauge for where your body is, like they let you know if you are on track or not. Another great thing about pants is pockets! It is so awesome to have a place to stick things. Hooray for pants!

I am pretty excited about my trip to San Francisco. I leave tomorrow morning. I will have a full day to hang out and have fun on Friday. On Saturday, I will have the show from morning until about 6 pm and then I will have the evening plus the first half of Sunday to enjoy the city. I think it will be nice. I have got my jewelry all picked out. I am not taking everything. Instead, I am trying to present a more streamlined, themed display. I am not taking the beaded stuff because it's really just not selling right now. I am going to try to figure out what I need for my display today by laying it all out. It needs to be super compact and fit in the big suitcase with my clothes. I am going to pack up the jewelry in plastic baggies and carry it on.

It would be super nice if James or a friend were accompanying me but I will be doing this trip solo. I think that can be nice too. I think it is kind of fun to be in an unfamiliar city on your own. I remember Melissa once telling me that artists needed solo vacations, so this should be nice. It's good to be alone with your thoughts sometimes and do things on your own terms. Well, anyway, whatever the travelling situation happens to be, I think it's good to make the best of it!

Had coffee with Melissa yesterday and got to meet her new pet toad, Lolly. She is just the cutest thing. Melissa and Nel have made her a little terrarium. It is so cool! It has a little coconut house and plants and logs and a dirt floor and also, a little pool of water. So cool! She was just hanging out in her little house, looking out at me. See pictures here.

No book for me.

Well, my book proposal was not accepted. In the email the editor I worked with said that the group was looking for more precious stuff, like doing projects with heirloom quality jewelry, which my jewelry definitely isn’t. She said they really liked the organization of my table of contents and that they thought my pieces were fun but that ultimately it just didn’t fit in with their list right now. She expressed that she was excited about the ideas I had come up with and that she was disappointed that it didn’t get accepted.

I feel okay about it. I think it was a really good experience. It made me really think about how I spend my time. It helped me pinpoint some bad habits like spending too much time on the internet! ha! It got me focused. I think I learned something from the experience. It is also cool just to see the process of writing a book proposal.

My friend Julie who has written a craft book mentioned getting an agent. That would be an option, to shop it around, but if I follow my heart, I just really want to make jewelry and have as few impediments to that as possible.

Yeah, I am so glad I tried!

6th Anniversary!

On Friday James and I celebrated our 6th anniversary. Time goes by fast! We went out for dinner at Carmelo's downtown. The food was yum! Afterward we walked around and checked out the SXSW crowd. We wandered through the lobby of the new Hilton, found a baby grand piano on the second floor and James played some songs. It was a nice evening. On Saturday we went down to S. Congress to see all the happenings. Had pizza at Homeslice and went to see a movie, 300, which was pretty good. Then came home and watched Peter Pan. That was a good palate cleanser after all the blood and gore of 300. ha ha. It was nice. I took an entire day off and really enjoyed it. No better way to celebrate an anniversary. The picture above is from our wedding day, in Greece. What a lovely day that was!

My book is getting presented on Monday so I will know in the next day or so if they decide to make an offer on it. I am still feeling like I can go either way on it. If it happens, it could be really exciting, a fun project, and if it doesn't, well, I can put that same energy into something else.

When I went to the dermatologist last week to get that thing removed, I also got him to give me a prescription for some stuff for my face. I am using some type of wash and retin A. At first it was seriously drying out my skin, like it really was painful but I think my face is settling down now. My skin seems like it is already getting better. Yay!

New leaves, crazy thrifter & getting waxes cast

I am thrilled to see that there are new leaves on the trees we planted in the backyard. The loquat looks like it's springing upward, the desert willow has sprouted a bunch of new leaves and the crepe myrtles have leaves on their underside. Yay! The rain has also helped the weeds. Looks like I am up for a few more weeks worth of weed pulling. At Natural Gardener they told us about corn gluten that you can spray on your yard in the winter to keep the weeds down. I am putting a reminder in my computer to do it next winter!

I had a successful thrifting trip on Sunday. I went out to try and find more drinking glasses but ended up with three new shirts, one skirt, a cool swag lamp, some vintage jewelry, a vintage white planter and a cool metal tray. Oh, and I did find one drinking glass. I would have had two cool swag lamps but the other one got sniped right out from under my nose. There are some hardcore thrifters out there. I was looking at this set of lamps and just forming the thought that I wanted to buy them and this woman and her daughter walked up and were like "this lamp is nice, it's $15, let's get it." And she just took it, even though I was clearly standing in front of it, looking at it. I couldn't believe it. So, I grabbed the other one and walked away quickly. I was afraid she would wrestle me for it! Crazy!!

I finally got an email back from the book people. She liked my table of contents but had a few suggestions for me. What a relief! So, I will keep plugging away on that.

On Monday I took my first batch of waxes in to get the professionally cast into sterling silver. I am just having so much trouble getting to class to do the casting right now and that seems to be slowing down the progress on putting out a sterling line so hopefully this will work out. I am anxious to have them back and see how they come out. I should get them back mid next week.

Had a lovely coffee date with Victoria and Amy B. yesterday. We are discussing the possibility of applying to the Renegade Craft Fair in New York this year. It would be a lot of fun. Hope we get in!

Cheatsheet

Okay, I've made up a cheatsheet for those of us who have the problem. Feel free to print it up and keep it in your wallet for easy reference. I am glad I am not alone in the problem! I used to have the problem telling Hoffman and Deniro apart until I started recognizing Deniro's distinctive eyes. I am not denying that these guys are amazing actors! They've been in some of my favorite movies! I especially love Al Pacino in Dog Day Afternoon, Serpico and the Godfather movies. Anyway, enjoy!

I don't feel old

Well the mole thing wasn't even a mole. It was a seborrheic keratoses, that's kind of what I thought too. heh. Anyway, it's benign and he just scraped it off and put on a bandaid. He said people start getting them when they get older. The brochure he gave me to take home had pictures of really old people on it. I am only 35! I don't feel old.

I just watched Stranger Than Fiction and it is going on my favorites list. I loved it! It's one of those movies that makes you feel really good about life and it was really pretty, visually, which is also something I like in a movie. And, I loved the cgi computer stuff that represented his thinking. I love when a movie does something fresh like that. I also loved that the wrist watch was an important character. In short, I recommend it. When we were in Paris, there were signs for it everywhere but it had a different title: L'incroyable destin de Harold Fricke.

It is time to come clean though, I have this problem of not being able to tell Dustin Hoffman and Al Pacino apart. James thinks it's crazy. Seriously, they look a lot alike!

I submitted a bunch of info to the book people so I am waiting to hear back. What if they just drop it? That thought hadn't occurred to me. I am going to email her again when it's been a week.

Marisa's bachelorette party was fun. She was so giggley and happy. We had a balloon blowing up contest and I accidentally let mine go and it smacked her in the face. It was pretty darn funny. How exciting to go to Thailand to get married!

I had a really good creative day yesterday. I worked on new jewelry designs from 9 in the morning until midnight when I collapsed into bed, exhausted! I made necklaces and new earrings using a bunch of the beads I purchased in London and combining them with odd little vintage things from all different places. Earrings are fun to make. They are kind of a challenge because you have to make something that involves all these different parts but they have to be small and light enough for someone to wear. It was a very good day.

I am starting to look forward to Round Top flea market! I am getting a plan together to go with some friends. I will probably be making more than one trip. My mom also wants to go. I went twice in the Fall and it was awesome!

new restaurant and mole

Last night we had dinner with James' mom at Zax. I was pleasantly surprised. The food was great and the atmosphere is really nice and cozy. We had a chocolate torte (sp) for desert that was awesome!

I have this newly sprouted mole on my stomach that I have to go see the doctor about today. I got my appointment moved up when it started to peel off. It is freaking me out! It is red and dry. It stings a little where it is starting to come off my skin. What the hell is going on?

I tried out my new photolights yesterday and I think they worked really well! Hope to find the time to finish out my photography and get my website updated today. Taking a bunch of new stuff to P&L today for SXSW. I am thinking about applying to ACL this year. Crazy!

Looking forward to Marisa's bachelorette party tonight!

Yardwork makes me happy.

Another fabulous weekend. On Saturday morning we went out to drink our coffee in the backyard and ended up working out there the whole day! We watched the sun go from one side of our yard to the other. It always starts with pulling a few weeks out of the grass and then we start getting ideas about other stuff we need to do. We cleaned out more beds and started a compost pile. We went to the Natural Gardener to get some new plants. We planted rosemary, lavendar, a tomato plant in the side and in the back we planted some lovely little ground cover plants, ruellla and something else. We also planted the two crepe myrtles that the city gave us. I felt so peaceful and content after a full day of outdoor work! It is good for the soul.

Saturday evening we made impromtu plans with Adam and Victoria, they came over and we grilled out and drank some wine. Victoria hung out with us while Adam went over to play with his band at a coffee house nearby. We had such a fun time. I laughed so hard!

Sunday I worked on my book proposal, replicated coin necklaces and cleaned house.

Today I am working on my latest website project. I seem to be building a side career as a web designer! I have been asked by another person to make a website for their business. This project would involve doing similar websites for three other businesses and maintaining them as well as creating and sending out their email promotions. I think I am going to do it!

You know what's so cool and I totally forgot about? When you squoosh the dish soap and bubbles float up out of the top. That happened this morning and it totally made me happy.

I won't ever regret not trying

Man, I had one of those days yesterday when my body made me go slowly. I didn't accomplish as much as I wanted to. My muscles were kind of sore all day! I think it was from tensing up during my dental appointment on Wednesday. It has been so long since I have had that kind of work done. All the drilling and burnt tooth smells are really taxing! I cannot imagine having that work done without anesthesia. The drilling super creeps me out. I have one more session to do the fillings on the other side of my mouth and then he wants me to have my last wisdom tooth pulled. Yikes!

It turned out that Forest went around talking to different senators on Wednesday. They had 30 minute meetings and Forest was there to explain how much his charter school has helped him. I did a little research on it this morning and it looks like there is a bill to change the regulations for charter schools in Texas. It could end up closing under-performing schools. I don't really understand much about it beyond the few stories I was able to read this morning but I do know that the school Forest is in now is the very best school experience we have ever had and that he seems to be very focused and engaged for the first time ever on succeeding in school and thinking about his future. It is sad to think that the school could be shut down because of a few kids who don't care about attendance or performing well on TAKS. Public school just doesn't serve the needs of every student and not everyone can afford private school.

I made some new coin necklaces yesterday. I used old francs that I bought in the Paris flea market. I love coin necklaces! I bought some new lights for my jewelry photography that I need to test out today. I have been having shitty luck with my photographs lately. I have been experimenting with all the different settings on my camera to try to make my pictures even better and I just haven't found the magic formula yet. So, I am going back to working with lights. Hope I have more success with my next round of photos. My shelf at P&L is going really well. I was just a little short of my goal for this month and I didn't expect to get anywhere near it since February is always so slow. I feel super good about that! I am just trying to figure out what designs and price range sell best there.

I am developing a website for one of James' clients right now. It is the first one I have ever done for pay! I kind of like building websites. I wouldn't mind taking more classes and learning more about it. I would like to take a lot of classes - photoshop, photography, dreamweaver, etc.

I am also working on a book proposal for a vintage jewelry making craft book. I was contacted through my website by someone from a major book publishing company to write a book proposal. I am working on gathering the information right now. I have really gone back and forth on whether I wanted to pursue it but after having a good conversation with Kristin L. about it I have decided to go ahead through the process and just see what happens. I won't be completely heartbroken if I don't get an offer but at least I won't ever regret not trying. Speaking of which, I really need to get busy on it.