whirlwind.

...feeling like this past week was a whirlwind. of fun. friends. work. learning. and not nearly enough sleep. and now that it's the weekend (my first one at home in a while), I'm looking forward to a bit of sleep and another belated birthday celebration with katie (and rob). but first, the exciting postcard that arrived in yesterday's mail!
(yes, mother & daddy, we're all set for graduation!) how exciting too, that it's at the georgia dome.

here's the best of the rest of the week (minus the snow and the 1313 that I already told you about).
1. at dinner, 2. 28/365 - hewitt headquarters, 3. 30/365 - birthday lunch, 4. city lights, 5. BME bootcamp training, 6. out the back window, 7. airborn sunset, 8. wisp again, 9. 24/365 - michigan avenue

snow.

...we got a light dusting yesterday afternoon (this is our rental car - great, huh, to give us a mustang in this weather!) and it looks like it was falling most of the night. really wish we didn't have to go into the office today. but thankful the woman who's driving that crazy mustang grew up in Rochester, NY!

home away from home.

...for the next 3 nights. if I do have to be away from home, at least it helps to be in one place so I can spread out and get comfortable. good thing though, that I'm not superstitious - this is the number outside my door! (who knew they even had a 13th floor at a hotel?!)
{and the weekend was simply wonderful, but it went by way too fast. no tools on this laptop to sort through all the photos, so that will just have to wait.}

pingg.

...found this new invitation site called pingg on jess' blog this morning. much better than evite. they've got a bunch of great designers, like jess!. this one is a special favorite - it looks much better in full size :-) (and I have the actual print, too). now I need to throw a party so I can use it!

another (just about!) finished object.

20/365 - blocking wisp
Originally uploaded by mere2007

...whew, much knitting and I am happy to say that wisp is on the blocking wires and well on its way to being a completely finished object well in time for my visit with sue this weekend.

had no plans at all to have yesterday's and today's photos be closeups of handwork. but if there is anything I'm glad I inherited from my grandmothers (aside from their name!), their love of handwork would be it.

fun stuff.

...lots of it. plenty of phase 10 dice. and a lovely visit to see winslow homer's engravings at the appleton museum of art. [the four wood engravings in that wikipedia article...we saw them! very cool to see so much history and such talent - we really enjoyed the exhibit and the permanent collection] the elephants out front look like they're having fun too!

last night, sara and I made dinner.

this morning, I played around with the poladroid program I read about in yesterday's paper.
and we took my tatting to get framed (cannot wait to see what it looks like finished!)

topped off with a six hour car ride home. more loaded questions (what word makes you cringe? I said "ain't" and sara said "pus" ... great for passing time on I=75!) and 4 episodes of SATC season three.

yup, pretty fun!

minneapolis.

...I thought about a lot of different titles - why I love the south, or why I love atlanta, or why I'm glad I don't see this every day (shoot, maybe even why I can't believe I saw this ever!). minneapolis was just plain ... cold (with snow). I read Kal's blog every day. Kal lives in Winipeg, which I think is more north, more snowy (colder) than Minneapolis. honestly, after this week, I can't even begin to imagine that much cold.

so bear with me - photos of the cold and the snow. and very glad we're driving south tomorrow, to central florida, where "cold" is 50-something degrees. :-)




and yes, another notch in my hewitt office belt.

knitting backwards.

12/365 - knitting
Originally uploaded by mere2007

...that's how it felt today. I was so excited about being half done with the yoke (past row 24). til I looked closely at the increases and realized I'd gotten off a stitch (you mark a stitch and increase on either side). so I ripped it ALL and started over. and marked the stitches with markers on either side. happy to report this photo was row 20 and I'm now on row 23... and hoping by the end of tonight to be knitting forwards.

weekend recap.

...honestly all pretty good (except for the minor freakout when I checked the weather forecast for minneapolis - the high for thursday is below zero. omg!!!!)

::kept up with the daily photo and added this past week to my calendar
::enjoyed two four mile walks in the park (thinking about how I can use the daily photo project to really *see* what's changing season to season and enjoying lime'n'violet and this american life podcasts)
::cooked
::knitted (photos coming soon, promise!)
::planned my trip to chicago to include a weekend with sue
::started emily falconbridge's Q52 project (click photos for details)



taking deep breaths to get myself ready for the three very busy weeks upcoming!

8/365 - sale.

8/365 - sale
Originally uploaded by mere2007

...taking a photo a day during the work week is starting (already!) to be a challenge. my days are mostly spent all the same. up dark early for a quick email and blog check, 2 miles on the treadmill, shower and to the office by 7:15. then at my desk. then home. and dinner with sara. maybe a little knitting. bed.

so today was exciting - a trip to the mall for something really warm I could wear to a client meeting. every store was advertising SALE! and ann taylor had exactly what I was looking for. except the black cashmere turtleneck. but that's on hold at the store by my office. shopping doesn't get much better than that (at least for me!)

back to work.

6/365 - back at work
Originally uploaded by mere2007

...a long day, but honestly not as bad as I thought it might be. keeping up with emails on my blackberry helped for sure! as did knowing that I've got another 3-day weekend coming up soon.

monday holiday.

...I love monday holidays. this one was especially productive. I spent five hours cleaning up and organizing my scrapbook space. found a lot of really great stuff (and realize I don't need to buy anything for a very long time!)

the very embarrassing "before"
and the "after"
sara spent an hour baking blondies.
I enjoyed the first one for dessert last night.

more scatter joy.

...wow - so true!

this past week, target had all the SATC seasons on sale for just $8.99 each. the entire series for $63...what a deal! (but I did have to visit two different stores to get all the seasons, and yes, katie, I got two copies of season 3!)

friday was pretty rainy - so after our great lunch out, sara and I settled in for season 1. we watched it straight through. and enjoyed it all, but it felt a bit decadent. like sitting down with a whole cheesecake and two forks...

scatter joy is always great for journaling prompts. I'm always looking for things to write about - yeah, I'm sure everyone is surprised that my life isn't always that interesting! and I found this site and tried it out this morning. my response is included in the comments.

photoshop.

...this program is definitely on my top 5 favorite things about my computer list (along with blogs, flickr, itunes, and I'm not sure what would be #5!). marc bought it for me last december, right after I got my laptop. and I spent most of 2008 figuring out how to upload (and print!) photos - especially loving those with words or ali edwards' wonderful overlays - and make collages.

but I never really got the hang of layers - until just now.

ali edwards template and lynn grieveson papers

wow. like the journaling says, I'm not sure I'll ever get into 100% digital...but the possibilities are cool, very cool!

(now I just need to figure out the poloroid template and my photoshop to-learn list will be complete!)

knit and sip.

...seems it will take a bit of practice to figure out how to manage this photo-a-day project. the good news is that I'm three days into it and have three photos uploaded to my flickr and to the group. the not-so-good news is that two of the photos are definitely ones I want in my photo album and I don't have 4x6 images to print (the lunch out is here) and one I'd blog about since it was for the knit and sip I had "upcoming" for the past week. here you go:


so far - and this is definitely a lesson in process (ooohh, maybe "experience"??!!) - I think the way to go is:

1. unload photo from camera and apply basic fixes (lighting, contrast, color - as needed); and then,
2. if I want it for my album, crop to 4x6 and save as "cropped"; else simply save as edited; and then
3. crop/resize to a square* and save in my 365 project folder;
4. upload to flickr and send to the 365 project pool; and finally
5. add to the digital calendar template

admitting I have not followed these five steps once in the past three days. at least not in that order. but I did just complete all these steps for all the days, and I think I'm on the right track. stay tuned!

*cropping and resizing to squares to accommodate the digital calendar template. for now anyway. but liking the option to re-make as "poloroids", too. bottom line - not yet committed to a specific "hardcopy" documentation approach for this project!

experience.

(credit to ali for the formatting idea...and I finally learned how to use background "paper" in photoshop - woo hoo!)

I love the idea of picking one word to be my focus for the year. The first year, it was journey and last year I picked grateful. I learned a lot from these two words and know I'm a better person for the habits they helped me create.

It took me a while to figure out what focus I wanted for 2009. A year that will be filled with travel (four trips already posted in my sidebar), seeing katie graduate from college, (hopefully!) seeing sara accepted into college, and winding down my 25+ year career. My goal for all of this is to actively participate...not to just let things happen or to be too tired to pay attention, to listen or to care.

Sara helped me narrow down the choices and we arrived at "act" and "experience". I looked them both up...and the definition for experience best summed up what I'm wanting for this year. I love that it's a noun and a verb. and I love the "direct participation".

This morning, I googled quotes on experience. Love these:

You must learn day by day, year by year, to broaden your horizon. The more things you love, the more you are interested in, the more you enjoy, the more you are indignant about, the more you have left when anything happens.
-Ethel Barrymore

Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace and gratitude.
- Denis Waitley

Once we believe in ourselves, we can risk curiosity, wonder, spontaneous delight, or any experience that reveals the human spirit.
- ee cummings

Thinking now about where this word will take me. what I might do differently with this as my focus. ...more to come...

a new bag.

...about once a year, I get hung up on a new bag - and for the past, I don't know how (forever?!) many years, it's been coach. but lately, I've been thinking I might need to venture out a bit. maybe a knitting bag that masquerades as a "not knitting" bag (like this one).

and the past several times I've been at cast on cottage, I've totally had my eye on this one. (can you tell from the photo that it's eggplant? as in purple?)

and I almost bought it today. but I have to go back tomorrow or sunday for buttons for the juliet and decided the real test would be...if it's still there then, it's a sign it's meant to be.

but I think the real sign is that I just saw (while reading my january vogue) that target is featuring hayden-harnett. which means I can pick up a looks like designer bag for less than $50. I just checked, and "my" target has this cute one in stock:

so...for way less than the price of one coach, I can pick up TWO stylish bags. and I know they're trendy, but I'm thinking it might be worth it for once!

looking forward (and back).

...I started two new projects today - the first a continuation of last year's gratitude journal.




I'm really pleased with how it turned out - and excited about capturing one grateful thought for each day. and one photo for each month.

the second is my "big" goal for 2009. a 365 project. and considering this or this for documentation.

I think these two projects will be a nice progression for my creativity - sort of a way of summing up what I've learned to do and enjoy these past two years. good habits now!

and looking back - I finished my december daily (aka "journal your christmas 2008") album yesterday. this is definitely a project I will do again next december. probably the same way - a mix of shimelle's prompts and simply taking photos and writing down our stories. the trick will be figuring out the album and the numbering scheme (I used up nearly all the 1's and 2's from my glitter stickers this time). but I've got nearly 11 months to work on that!




wishing everyone a wonderful 2009! live well. laugh often. love much.