Tu hablas Espanol?

While Aaron and I were in Chicago, we had yet another run-in with Spanish. We were walking down the street around the corner from the hotel when someone passing asked Aaron a question. He mumbled some answer and we kept walking. I asked Aaron what happened. He said that it didn't register at the time but that the guy had asked him what time it was -- in Spanish. Even though we have learned the time in our Spanish class, and he knew the answer, he was just surprised and unprepared so he said he didn't know. Granted, Chicago has a large Hispanic population and Aaron fits in anywhere. It's just sad that we didn't make use of our new vocabulary...

We are better with beans. Here we are reflected in the shiny side of the millenium bean.

The labels are finally here!

While we were in Chicago, my fabric labels came in the mail. I'm so excited that they finally showed up. I'm happy with the font and the color. I thought for some reason that my logo would be woven, not printed. Oh well. It was only a test. I'll keep researching companies. I'm not a big enough business yet to be able to afford a bulk order with my custom logo so this is a great start. I deliberately chose a common font so it would be inexpensive for me to reproduce.

So now it's official! I'm going to work on a pillow this week since I'm taking vacation days from work. I was waiting on the labels to show so that I could sew one into the seam.

I've been very busy at work and have ended up so tired by the evening that I haven't been able to get any Lemon Cadet stuff done. I have a lot to catch up with for the Etsy shop. Maybe I'll be able to get back on my feet. My goal with the shop was to post 3 - 5 new items per week. I have a couple ready to go and should get them up before Thanksgiving. It takes a lot of time to shoot the pics and color correct them in photoshop.

It's really important for me to keep this fun and to keep it real. I don't want to get stressed out. I need each of these pieces to be infused with good vibes -- not stress. If that means I upload fewer products, then I'm okay with that.

Etsy has turned off the counters so I can't tell who is looking at my stuff. I hope they get that fixed soon. Such a blow to the ego, even if you know the reason...

A new ETSY...

The ETSY site is back up and looking good. The layout is clean and easy to navigate. I'm really happy with all the new features. A couple of my images aren't coming up so I'll have to upload them again this evening.

This is a picture of Franciso the Yeti. I'll be making some of these shirts for my nephews before Thanksgiving. They are calling him the Abominable Snowman. Gotta love the Bumble!

It's good to be back...

Will there be ETSY withdrawal symptoms?

ETSY will be down for upgrades all weekend. In some ways, I'm looking forward to it; perhaps I'll be able to get something done! I spend a lot of time searching for Christmas gifts and fun things for myself. It's such an amazing group of supportive and creative people.

This is Francis. I'm putting him here because he tends to get a bit of separation anxiety. I didn't want to leave him alone on ETSY all weekend. He needs a lot of attention.

Good luck to the tech guys at ETSY. Hope the upgrade goes smoothly.

It's so easy being green...

My friend Beth asked me to make a special onesie for her friends who are having a baby. They love frogs so I made a cute little guy with this great corduroy number print fabric. It's a really fine wale, so incredibly soft. This is one of my favorite items up on the shop. I just wanted to post a pic here too.

My Studio and The Omelette King's Couch

This is a photo of my friend Sara, author of Crackpots and the soon-to-be-released Lately, lounging on the Omelette King's Couch when it used to live in her studio across town. I am now the proud owner of this fabulous couch (even though I have to warn visitors of the sink potential just before they sit down). The springs need a bit of work.

I planned the color scheme of my studio around this couch. When we bought our house in 2004, the upstairs room was designated my studio, strange stain on the wall near the ceiling and all. After almost 3 years and several "guesses" by contractors, roofers, friends, psychics, my dad, and the previous owners ("We thought it was just a shadow."), my husband tore out the wall with a sledgehammer to find no known cause of the problem. Aaron insulated around the area, built a new wall in front of it, and called it a day (or, better yet, a year or two). After that we put up a beadboard ceiling and painted the walls. The back wall color is called Greek Tapenade, the side walls are Apple Green 2, and there is one wall painted white to feature my 2-D work and which serves as the backdrop for my gallery shots. The floor, originally covered by nasty carpet over linoleum tile over masonite nailed every two inches, is heart of pine painted a nice rich burgundy-brown similar to the couch (because there was no way to refinish this room like the rest, it was trashed).

I am almost finished moving in. After I get everything organized, I'll post some photos. My shelves (painted Mustard Seed) are up and my small globe collection is in place.

Montar a Caballo

This past summer, my husband and I went to Mexico for 12 days. It was one of the best experiences of my entire life. I am very lucky that we travel so well together and that we both love doing the same things away from home. We each take one small backpack (I prefer my old red Kelty Redwing and he uses one from Underground Products, UGP) so that we can go anywhere at just about anytime without taking up a lot of space. We don't have a schedule, just a guidebook and a list of places we'd like to see. I am an obsessive planner so even though we don't travel with a stone agenda, I like to have information ready for all the possibilities.

We started in Mexico City. This photo is from the monument Hemiciclo a Benito Juarez at Alameda Central, a short walk from the Palacio de Bellas Artes. We were across the street looking at these amazing outdoor sculptures by Juan Soriano when we spotted this police officer on horseback! My husband had never ridden a horse before and he was fascinated by this guy. We crossed several lanes of traffic to go talk to him and luckily he spoke English really well. After we were talking to him for a while, he got off the horse and told us to get on. I wasn't about to, but Aaron didn't hesitate. It was his first time on a horse. It was great.

One of the reasons I love my husband is that every time we're in a Spanish speaking country, people will just start talking to him really fast in Spanish because he has very dark skin and looks like he could be of Mayan ancestry. The confused looks on their faces when he doesn't understand a word are priceless. No one believes it. But, we're about to change all that.

I've been taking advantage of my one-free-class-a-semester faculty benefit with Spanish 101. Every day after my class, I go home and repeat the lesson and give La Tarea. We just learned the words for activities like esquiar, comer, beber, patinar, and correr -- and the only thing I could think of when we got to montar a caballo was this image, burned into my brain forever.

I'll be posting more pictures and stories of the trip in the upcoming months. I also owe the Lonely Planet's Thorn Tree Forum a long trip report. I have to admit that we made the huge mistake of buying the Let's Go Guide because it had a more recent publication date than The Lonely Planet guide, which came out right after we got home. I used Let's Go for a trip to Europe about 10 years ago and it was perfect. But now that I'm older, my standards for where I sleep have changed and I prefer the recommendations of people who understand that the floor of a frat house is nasty and a hotel with similar levels of cleanliness could not possibly be considered "sparkling" (as was our experience with a hotel recommended by the writers of Let's Go). We won't make such a mistake again.