A new foot forward

It's the beginning of November and I think I am motivated to make some change. Tess has been making lots of little strides forward as of the first of the month. She has decided to take a photo of herself everyday for 365 consecutive days (a Flickr thing), and is also taking an hour out of her day to do something therapeutic. It was the later of the two that kick-started my ambition today. Why can't find an hour or even a half-an-hour to take care of myself.

I am not going to diet. I am not going to cut out alcohol. I don't drink Coke anymore, maybe a can a month and for a member of my family that counts and none.

Therefore, best way I know how to take care of myself is by running. I was on the cross country team in high school and really enjoyed it, but I have never run consistently since graduating. I don't have any outrageous goals of a marathon, ala Katie Holmes, but I would like to drop the ten pounds I've put on since my wedding. Well, it's not actually ten extra pounds as much as its healthy muscle rapidly disintegrating into flabby arms and thighs.

I'm not alone in this mission, the three of us are in this together.

These two fuzzies have to be my motivation, and maybe all of my friends in cyberland do too. You will have to hold me accountable. Please, remind me. Motivate me some more. I need it. Really, you should see these thighs. I will post weekly updates of how many miles I have walked/run in a given week. And, to kill two birds with one stone, I will post this on Sundays, just for Kelly who complains that I don't post everyday. (...complains by calling me a 'slacker' and this has taken its toll on my psyche in such a way that I cannot go on living until I make a post JUST FOR KELLY.)

Here we go:
Week 1
Walking, 2 miles
Running, 1/2 mile

Happy Halloween!

We celebrated Halloween a little bit earlier in the week. Saturday night we went to a party at our friends Carolyn and George's home. The invite instructed we come as dead rock stars. After weeks of pondering the possibilities and four trips to the thrift store, we ended up as Mama Cass and a white Jimi Hendrix.

When I found that dress, I had to have it. I didn't have an immediate idea for who I could become while wearing it. I snapped some shots on the iPhone and uploaded them to Flickr. My sister Jen helped me formulate the rest of the ensemble. She took one look at the dress and knew what to do with it! Right away she spouted, "Mama Cass! Tie something around your head, get some daisies, a ham sandwich and go barefoot!"

Plus Jen found this photo of Mama Cass knitting! Hooray!

The dress fit pretty well and I didn't think I would be able to put a pillow under the dress to make me look fat. Thomas was dead set on fattening me up for the costume. He made me shove every throw pillow in the house under my dress and finally he was satisfied with a green square one. Thrilled with his decision, he scampered off to the garage to get the duct tape. A word to the wise, don't ever let your husband convince you that duct taping something directly to your skin is a good idea. Ever. Learn it now. This is what happens at the end of the evening, and it stays that way with a mild burning sensation for the next four days.

Thomas on the other hand was a bit more challenging. Do we send him as Kurt Cobain, a young Jerri Garcia? Nothing seemed to work right. Then I found a photo of Jimi Hendrix in a black shirt and a white jacket with tight jeans. He owns a white jacket. That was a good start. I found a classy polyester double-knit navy blue button-down shirt with white triangles. To add to my excitement, the shirt was not only his neck size but cut long in the torso. Perfect!

We found a scarf for his head, and frizzed up his hair.

The only hurdle left was pants. I didn't find anything appropriate at the thrift store. Thomas doesn't own jeans, he considers them too average, too expected, too common. I was racking my brain to figure something out. His business khakis certainly wouldn't work. Scanning the dirty laundry piles in the bedroom, I spotted the perfect item. I convinced him to wear my skinny jeans.

Thomas. Skinny. Jeans.

He complained that they were crushingly painful. He couldn't reach his feet to put on his socks or tie his shoes. But damn, they looked good!

New stuff! Heather Ink business cards

Finally, after months of deciding whether to get a 'real' job or work freelance, I decided to design some business cards and give the world of freelancing a try.

Conceptually I wanted my business cards to reflect my company as a graphic design studio that focuses on print design. Whenever I begin a project I list all the things I can about a topic. So for print design, let's see, type, printing, color, ink, crop marks, color bars, printing press, ink, misprints, etc. Then I focus on combining some if not all of those things into the logo.

The colors weren't hard, black and pink. So then I started to play around with print bars and ink splots trying to see what looked best together. I tried different fonts some with serifs and some without. I even got a little crazy and did a gradient on Heather.

I started to see something I liked. Black type with magenta ink splatter as the dot above the "i" was really starting to grow on me.

Next came business cards. Originally I thought I wanted an over-sized card, maybe 3 inches square. They passed, but I wasn't in love with them. Something was missing, they needed more excitement.

I went back and looked at my original ideas about printing and print design. What about crop marks or registration marks? What if the printer 'messed up' my cards? How would they look?

I moved it sideways, upside down, backwards. None of those ideas worked. What if the card was cut out crooked? Perfect.

I landed some registration marks, the printer bars, an ink splot for good measure and made sure they were pretty off center.

I love them, hopefully they bring in some business!

Blog Action Day

This year's Blog Action Day topic is the environment. Bloggers can participate by writing about the topic in whatever way suits their blog. Helping the environment is not something we can do over night. Start by choosing one thing that can make a difference.

My choice:

My friend Tess of Made by Tess fame, developed these amazing grocery totes. You take them to the grocery store so you don't have to leave with 1000 petroleum based plastic bags. They're large enough to fit all your veggies, milk and chips. I've loaded mine up to 35 pounds and not a single stitch gave loose! I love these bags, I own two myself and have given more as gifts.

The whole idea of taking your own bag to the store is common in Europe, but never really became part of American culture. Hopefully things will take off soon with people like Julia Roberts getting in on the action.

Photo courtesy of Jezebel.

For quick trips to the store for eggs or chocolate I use a Chico Bag. They're small and they fold up into a self contained pouch for easy purse storage.

So go, find a way to change something in your everyday life. These bags are a great start. In case you're not convinced, here are some frightening statistics about plastic bags from Chicobags.com:

- The average American uses between 300 and 700 plastic bags per year.

- If everyone in the United States tied their annual consumption of plastic bags together in a giant chain, the chain would reach around the Earth not once, but 760 times!

- According to the American Forest and Paper Association, in 1999 the U.S. alone used 10 billion paper grocery bags, requiring 14 million trees to be cut down.

- Plastic bags don’t biodegrade, they photo-degrade—breaking down into small toxic bits contaminating soil and waterways and entering the food-chain when mistaken for zooplankton or jellyfish.

Another wonderful night

Loveboat Sushi in Oceanside, makes the best sushi I've had on the west coast. Tonight we had wonderful service and fabulous food (as usual). Toro and gold-leafed blue fin tuna to start.

Everything was fantastic. Yellowtail, jumbo live scallop, Spanish mackerel, salmon, all lubricated with sake and Sapporo.

I even got a rose from Kenny.

But the highlight of the evening, of course, was our favorite sushi chef Jerry.