Year: 2013

Stewing

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The majority of my days between Thanksgiving and the second week of December were spent stewing.  I wish I could say I was productively thinking, but I wasn’t.  You know when you are just stuck in your head, with thousands of thoughts and instead of doing something with them and with that energy, you just sit and replay your worries over and over and over again?  You break them down, you analyze them.  You come up with no plan nor a result.  You just let it sit and stir and stew.  It sits there.  Stewing.  You sit there doing nothing. My mental hamster wheel came to a sudden halt when I received a phone call from the Bachelorette asking me if I was available to work the next day or two.  “Ummm… err.  Yeah… well..”  I hemmed and hawed as she sat patiently on the other end of the line.  “Sure.  Yes.  Yes!  Okay, I will come in if you need me.  Thank you for calling me,”  I said, committing to doing at least something …

What I’d Give …

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I may not have pursued the Merchandise Marketing career I studied for in FIDM in 2004, but I do still know how to shop the market and put together things I think are cool… to me at least.  I still get a real high from going to stores, seeing what’s out there, how things are laid out, what moves, what doesn’t, what people are buying, and what motivates the makers behind their brands at the craft fairs I frequent here in San Francisco.   I take pictures, write notes, and ask questions.  I’ve been mistaken for a secret shopper/ evaluator, shop owner or editor more than once.  Hmmm… could be fun to look into that one of these days.  I just like it so much.   When I was invited to contribute to the Classic Play holiday gift series, I jumped at the chance.   Visit the little Holiday Gift Guide 2013 that I compiled for kids, for her, for him, and for couples right here.    Mine is the sixth contribution in a series of picks from …

Crunch

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Designed this way, the word ‘crunch’ remains fun!  Image by Suzanne Barber With ninety minutes to spare before getting picked up for game night, I did more within that hour and a half than I had accomplished ALL DAY.  I am surprisingly efficient when the minutes are ticking away.  Not only did I wash dirty dishes, but I dried and shelved them,  cleaned the countertops, changed out the dish towels, mopped the floor, and brought the trash and recycling out.  I showered and dressed, wrote some holiday cards and wrapped two small presents.  To most of you this may not be a big deal, but I once disclosed in my post here, how very inept I tend to be in the housekeeping department.  In a time crunch, on the other hand, I am able to empty the dryer, sort, fold, hang, and put away laundry, beginning to end, within a fifteen minute window better than if I were given an open ended hour or two at another point.  Sometimes with too much time and too much …

In Case You’d Forgotten

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Original Graphic Print by Hillary Bird Because you are my friend.  Because I love and care about you, I want to tell you during this confusing and frustrating time: We are in this together. You are that person.  That person who does what she’s supposed to do and what she believes is expected of her, what is best and what is right, because those are things you value.  The curse of being a sympathetic member of society is giving a sh*t about things beyond one’s own life.   Putting your all into everything leaves a girl with nothing much left.  It tends to get inconvenient.  The beauty with true girlfriends is that we can listen without judgement.  You are afraid that telling me too many of your household woes and venting your annoyances about the hubs is going to put you in a bad light.  You are worried that I will start seeing him differently.  You are also afraid that this would be considered airing out your dirty laundry in front of me and that it’s not …

I Love My Ass

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Yes.  You read that right.  I love my ass. I love how it keeps my hip joint stabilized, allows me to stand up and to walk around.  My ass provides my body more power to tackle these hilly San Francisco streets, and was the location for many a pediatric shot in my day.  Most of all, I love my ass because I love sitting on it.  Oh how I love sitting on it. If I didn’t have my ass to sit on, I wouldn’t have had the ability to watch Garance Dore’s YouTube channel on a loop Thanksgiving weekend.  I wouldn’t be able to snuggle up on the couch to read back issues of Bazaar, Real Simple, and Elle Magazines while devouring my stash of Maple Bacon Kettle Potato Chips (move over, Limon Lay’s).   Without having this ass I love, what would I sit on when chatting with overseas friends at 1a.m. or when catching up old school on the phone (my actual land line, no less) with domestic ones? I love my ass because …

(Design) Feast Day!

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A feature – A Real One!     I always enjoy reading features and interviews on interesting creatives.  I like to hear about their motivation, their processes, and generally to get a better idea about their personalities and the lives they lead.  How flattered I was to hear from the wonderful Nate Burgos earlier in the fall when he invited me to take part in his Design Feaster Blogger’s Quest(ionnaire) series.  His mission is clear, to explore the world of designers and bloggers in his long term project dedicated to creative culture.    Please support his purpose by visiting his site, http://www.designfeast.com, and find out about other creative minds, and spread the word!   In classic fashion, I was at once excited and intimidated, thinking, as always, who will care about anything I have to do or say, but I decided to take my own advice and cut myself some slack.  I am starting to bridge my off line life with my on line one, but am doing so in the babiest of baby steps.  Having …

The Houseguest

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No, you are most certainly NOT welcome here.  Image c/o lowes It could be said that I always have something on my mind.  I am able to multi task effectively a tiny bit, and thrive on lots of ideas and things popping up here and there to keep the coals hot.  It can also be said that when there is something particularly distressing upon me, I fail to creatively function, and I cannot find a way to write around it.  My last record was 11 days, when I was getting a bit itchy with the mister, discussed here.  When something deeply emotional takes residence, there is room for little else.  It takes up all of the bedrooms, makes others line up for the shower, does not replace the toilet paper,  and cleans out the fridge every meal time.  It considers no one else.  The rest of the house members just grunt and deal with its presence, waiting for its to return flight home.    It is that tiresome houseguest who creeps in at midnight wearing …

If I Dressed the Way I Pinned…

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If I 100% dressed the way I pinned, my life would be so different. For the most part, wearing the clothes I pin would not work on the bus, and since I don’t drive I would then be forced to walk much more, but the heels I’d be teetering on, wedges or not, wouldn’t get me too far. If I dressed the way I pinned, that would likely mean I would need to start getting ready 60 minutes earlier than I already do, or planning my outfits the night before while my hair is set in a mask and my pores are shrinking back to recover from just being stripped. Dressing the same way I pin would mean not only that I would actually be rotating all of the shoulder bags, totes, and clutches in my closet regularly, but that I would actually be able to find them exactly when I need them. Dressing the same way I pin might even mean that some days, the pockets to my jeans would be enough to carry me …

The Prodigal Pal

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So here’s the thing… Monday on my day off, I had a list of things I wanted and needed to do: 1.  Look into tickets to go visit my mom. 2.  Start planning a fun getaway for my husband’s 40th birthday. 3.  Buy a better pot for our newest indoor tree, Lucas (I hope Bertie likes him). 4.  Plan a menu for the week. 5.  Determine whether or not to attend ALT Summit, SLC. Instead, I ended up chatting with an old friend who you could consider part of the long-lost variety.   Even though we are “friends” on Facebook, we hadn’t spoken in years. It isn’t because we became enemies, we just stopped being friends.  There was not a huge fight that ended the relationship, though there may have been a tense encounter or two at the finish line to ensure the completion of it.  This friend had less time for me and wasn’t afraid to show it, saying, “Nah,” with no alternative suggestions to any of our typical plan making for the weekends became the …