birthday girl.

(that's me!)

do you like someecards.com because I sure do! witty, funny ecards for every situation!

*and maybe I'm enjoying a little birthday vino right now! Cheers!

fire hydrant love.

I'm not exactly sure what it is about love & fire hydrants but I think I can get into it. I saw this one while awaiting my chariot, the B77 bus (read: the bane of my commute on days with too much bad weather to allow me to ride my bike) out of Red Hook yesterday.

*enjoy!

day trip!

I needed to get out of the city... pretty badly. Some friends needed us to "car-sit" last minute and told us we should take it up to New Paltz we were sold!

A few miles hiking around a very frozen lake did us a lot of good... 4 hours sitting in traffic and trying to find a parking spot when we got back, not so good... we're hoping the latter didn't reverse the affects of the former!




*thanks for driving boys! and HUGE thanks to Taylor & Tiffany for trusting us with your chariot!

forever & ever.

We had a Valentine's brunch of bagels in Prospect Park... it was a mild 30 degrees outside. (us Southerners will be Brooklynites if it freezes us to death!!!)

*and, I made a bunch of handmade Valentines only using stuff from my scrap-paper bin ... but accidentally mailed them before photographing them (with the exception of this one! oops!)

Much love to you all! (& enjoy tomorrow if you have it off of work like we do! I think we're going to borrow a car and do a little hiking... I hope!)

little things.

I wish my life gave me time everyday to blog. and read. and write letters (not emails). and play on my sewing machine. and to go for a run (or walk). But there's not always enough time for everything. Enjoy the little things, like this fire hydrant that I see every time I step out of my 4th floor walk-up.

the twinkle...I think...

For a few days my gchat status has been, "feeling a little twinkle of inspiration & personal growth...is there something new on the horizon?"

I really didn't know what that meant when I wrote it. I felt like there would be an inspiring personal project coming up soon but I'm so busy with the magazine and other things that I didn't know how or what. Until I saw this post from Stef about a project for Good 50x70.

*is anyone up for a collaboration, or getting together (virtually) for some brainstorming/crits... you know, just for the fun of it?


**above typography from Good 50x70.

lunch break.

Okay, so I don't actually take a lunch break most days. I'll eat a burrito and send an email but I mostly just keep truckin'. (the first issue of the new magazine goes to print on Friday...not a lot of down time these days!)


However, I was freezing my toes off the other day and took a mid-morning break to take a quick walk around Red Hook with my camera. (Yes, I left the indoors to go for a walk in the evil winter because I was cold...I was hoping the physical activity would help.) Any way, Red Hook is sort of a weird place. I've worked (2 jobs) in the neighborhood for 4 months now and it's like a small, industrial town...in Brooklyn. It's sort of off the map of public transit but it has the best view of the Statue of Liberty with out tourists.

thoughts on color from an icy tundra of grayness.

O! Color! why have you gone out of this cold grey world that I live in? If you didn't read Sarah's (weeders digest) post on d*s you should do that right now. It is a hysterical & all-too-accurate account of what life is like in Brooklyn this frozen January!

I have been working quite dilligently on a project for a hair designer in the Dallas area (read: lots of fun colors!). And while searching for inspiration for the perfect color palette (here) I have had a growing love for one of my already-favorite colors right now. Pantone's Mimosa. Is it cliche? You tell me. But everytime I see it (or any of Mimosa's siblings, Curry, Turmeric, Mustard...) My heart leaps! And in the grey, ice-covered city that I live in she is a beacon of better things to come.

Also, a fantastic typeface found on itsnicethat (which you should read every morning for inspiration) by Marc Alcock.

WELCOME HOME, SISTER!

I should also take a minute to say that Marissa came home from Iraq yesterday.

Thank you, sister, we are so glad that you're home!

Come visit us in frozen NYC soon! xo

6 months ago, today.

It's taken me this long but I think I'm finally getting to the point where going through wedding photos doesn't make me start hyperventilating. (not because of the hitched thing... but because it was a very stressful time. so maybe I'll post some more in the future?)

Thank you, Justin for being a better husband than I could have imagined!


*all photos by my very talented friend, Hillary, except the last one...taken at dinner tonight.

Change of Heart // Animal Collective

Do you listen to NPR's All Songs Concidered?
J does. (that means I get to, by default...I love it. I mean... we love it!)

After battling with my feelings about Animal Collective for sometime Leanne & I confessed this weekend, boys present, that we can't really get in to them (Animal Collective, that is, not the boys). They just cross that line of "I can't focus while I listen to this mayhem!" But. this evening. J & I were listening to All Songs Concidered and they're featureing the new Animal Collective album, Merriweather Post Pavilion. I'm amazed. truly. It's phenomenal.

*Animal Collective poster by The Small Stakes (Jason Munn).

a little something.

A gift to someone important's family...something they called, "the best Christmas gift they could ever receive."





It was more about the contents of the little books I created than about the books themselves... But I felt the contents deserved a little something more than a nice envelope.

I made 10 total. I did use an inkjet printer for the inside, and ran the muslin "title" through the printer as well I sewed the bottom of the pages with a machine...so, they aren't entirely "handmade" (but I like to think that their pretty close).

at long last...

Yes, I'm alive...busy, but alive.
some projects coming soon(ish).

*please forgive questionable photography. I literally held my computer up above the cake to take the picture with my fancy new MacBook. (thank goodness I didn't drop it!)

Pistachio cake by my friends at Baked.

Christmas Dinner // Island Fish Stew

About 3 days after I graduated from high school I traveled to Martha's Vineyard with 2 of my friends, we lived in an old lady's attic for $25/week...for the whole summer. It was HOT. We had no way to do laundry. The only laundromat was out of town & we didn't have a car...so we did laundry maybe 3 times in 3 months. We each worked 2+ jobs that summer. I did everything from working at the Black Dog General Store in Vineyard Haven to working in a fancy Brazilian restaurant right on the water, to babysitting & yard work. It was wonderful. We were always tired but the vineyard was something that certainly set the tone for the way I would plan all of my summers – go away for the whole summer & work your tail off while you do something totally new and different.

[maybe that was an unnecessary preface to this recipe. oh well, I like sharing stories.]

J & I spent Christmas in Boston's fabulous, Italian, North End. I literally felt like I woke up Christmas Eve in Italy...everyone was speaking Italian (even J with his theatric & throaty "Ciao Bella's!") and the area had a wonderful old-world charm. We went from tiny shop to tiny shop searching for all of the ingredients for our Christmas Dinner – Island Fish Stew in the Black Dog: Summer on the Vineyard cookbook.






*If you can't read the recipe fully & would like it, just leave a comment or shoot me an email, I would be happy to get it to you!

Flea Market Finds

We've scored a few rad new items at flea markets lately. The first is an electric clock circa 1970. Even if it's a little slow, it's so much cooler than the blegh ones I've seen at Linens N Things.

And a pair of amazing horn-rimmed glasses that I actually plan to have some new lenses put into.(yes, Mom, just like the ones you used to wear!) J even got the seller to throw in the awesome granny style glasses case for free...(but the guy called J a "prejudice bast***"!) ah, New York!


Happy New Year to you all, I hope to resume some sort of regular posting soon-ish.