Tired

My days have been busy and long. We have had a hectic few days and the future doesn't show much relief. A real post tomorrow, I promise.

Happy Holidays

I've spent the last two days up to my eyeballs in ribbon and wrapping paper. The last few years I have made a lot of the gifts we give to people, but this year I was not so motivated. Instead, I've had a lot of fun collecting gifts along the road of life.

I'm actually looking forward to the holidays this year. It's the first year in nine years that I am not working retail in some capacity and it feels great. Yesterday I poured over my wrapping paper collection and chose two coordinating papers, then I hauled out my rubber stamps, pinking shears and glue stick, made hang tags and bound each package with lots of twine.

Of course, once I sat down on the floor to commence my wrapping festivities, I was joined by two furry not-so-helpful helpers. Henry came and and wedged himself in the tightest burrow he could while still monitoring my every move.

Lola went for a more active approach. First she started on my left...

then she made a full circle inspecting every gift, paper choice and scissor making sure to step on each before moving on to the next.

Finally I made some headway. I call this year "2007, the year of the GIANT gift tag." I like how they look and I'm excited to give them!

This is Susan's gift. I've very excited about it.

Oh, and look, Jenny's gift got some special stamping treatments!

One day someone will tell me they went to Emmaus

I finally decide to introduce myself to the neighbor who looks cool but I hadn't ever talked to because, I don't know, we've only lived near each other for three years. I went old school, taking her a homemade peach cobbler. I figured she'd have to like me if I take her food, and what girl doesn't want dessert at 11am from an unshowered neighbor she's never met?

So Jane and I got to chatting, she sews, loves serving dishes and is generally disinterested in all things uncool. I watched their dog. We had them over for dinner. They got us really drunk one night. Perfect! Then Jane ordered a pumpkin latte from Starbucks and everything changed. "Oh, you should come see my husband's band play next week," she said.

"Cool."

"His band, the Pigdogs, will be playing and then after them is another cool band with this guy Nato Wolfgang."

"Huh? Nato Wolfgang. That sounds really familiar. Why do I know that name?"

"He's like two cars in front of me in the Starbucks drive-thru. He lives in our neighborhood."

"Oh yea, I do know him. Well, I know his mom from my yarn store days, and his sister does my hair!"

"Wait, you know Julia?"

"Wait, you know her?"

That conversation was just too weird for me to handle. Since moving to California I have been relatively anonymous. It wasn't like in Pennsylvania where people would accost me and say, "You look like your father." Or "How's your mother doing?" Or, "Jennifer, Jennifer!"

My siblings are quite a bit older than me and my parents had a different circle of friends by the time I came along. The old friends would see me about town and shout various things at me. I would come home and describe the situation, where I was, what they were driving, etc. and my parents would say, "Oh, that was Nancy's best friend in fourth grade, how's she doing?" Uh, yea. She's great. WTF?

But if you ever want to remain anonymous, don't open a yarn shop where you meet thousands of women. Last night I went to happy hour with my neighbor and some of her other friends. Jane was recounting the story about how we know the same people and then one of the other women pipes up and says, "Yarn shop? You must know Moira!"

Anonymity over.

A little Henry for the afternoon

New portfolio piece

I just delivered these business cards to a new client. His logo was clean so they were a lot of fun to design. I had them printed at Will Copy & Print in San Diego. They did a beautiful job as usual.

I am putting them in my portfolio. I really like them.