all things girls can tell

cake and ice cream. and pretty.

for those that don't already know, this weekend is the annual ice cream festival at penn's landing. oh yes. all you can eat ice cream, for $5. just don't accidentally throw away your spoon. it's amazing how cranky those volunteers can be when they have to give you a new one... i'll be there, along with some of the funnest etsy admin i know.

the girlscantell shop is inching closer to 600 each day, so if you want a lovely, marvelous trivet and some $1 shipping, hop on it. also, i happened to catch this beautiful print gracing the front page this afternoon, and i love it. so if you were itching to buy me somethin' pretty today, this may as well be it.

sweet six hundred!

so, in typical sara fashion, i *just now* noticed that i'm inching awfully close to 600 sales in my etsy shop, girlscantell. to celebrate, the next ten orders will have $1 priority shipping, and i'll be including a handprinted cork trivet (and likely other little goodies yet to be determined). so, numbers 592, 593, 594, 595, 596, 597, 598, 599, 600 and 601, you're in luck! about the trivets: i have no plans of selling these goodies - they're not available in any of the places i consign / wholesale, and i don't really plan on listing them in the shop, despite how much i love them. they're only really available when i do in-person shows, and for these special orders. awww. exclusivity. yay.

if you buy two items (ie, you're numbers 594 and 595), you'll get the trivet and something else amazing, like cork coasters! or pot holders! it's almost like i'm a public radio sponsorship drive, and the more you purchase, the more you get! (not just 'cause you paid more, but because you deserve more?) i'll probably just include extra goodies in the design you ordered, since that's a pretty good indication you like that particular design, usually... and shipping for your order will still be $1, priority mail (for domestic orders only, and the shipping difference will be refunded through paypal).

i just stocked up the shop (i realized this weekend how silly it was that i had gobs of printed goodies, sitting in girlscantell headquarters, some of it already photographed, and hardly any of it listed). so this is today's public service announcement: go shop girlscantell.

in other news, happy birthday, cute erik!

thursday and all its thursdayness

so, i've been getting a little more serious about this 'training to run a race longer than 3.2 miles for the first time in three years', and it feels good! i joined the freshly opened sweat gym (warning: their website makes weird noises) just on the other side of broad, and it's awesome. not only is it super convenient, but the space is great! it was a nursery school that had a fire, and the building sat vacant for a few years (to my knowledge, there were no injuries in the fire, and the nursery school just moved across the street to a different space) until the gym bought it and just did a brilliant job cleaning it out, removing a couple floors, and creating a really open, raw, well designed space there. (yes, i'm an architecture / space loving nerd even when it comes to choosing a gym - i mean, if it's not a space i want to be in, what's the point of paying a monthly fee to be a member, right?)

so, for those who'd like to follow along at home, here are my mileage goals for each week between now and the run on september 22. they're based on the mileage i did when training for a full marathon with team in training:

• june 23 - 29 : 8 miles (that's this week! i have about 2.5 left to go!)
• june 30 - july 6 : 10 miles
• july 7 - 13 : 10 miles
• july 14 - 20 : 11 miles
• july 21 - 27 : 12 miles
• july 28 - aug 4 : 13 miles
• aug 5 - 11 : 15 miles
• aug 12 - 18 : 17 miles
• aug 19 - 25 : 18 miles
• aug 26 - sept 1 : 22 miles
• sept 2 - 8 : 24 miles
• sept 9 - 15 : 22 miles
• sept 16 - 22 : 12 miles + 13.1 distance run

in other news, i finally listed these napkins in the shop, by the way. one of my goals for the week is to sort my 'sewing' room by what is currently listed and what should be listed on etsy, so look for more goodies (fresh stuff! at last!) coming soon to girlscantell shop. yay.

ps. it's thursday! three things to remember on thursdays: spt, workshop, csa!

video, bolt bus and some good reads

the storque published an article and the video of my presentation at ignite, so in case you missed it, it's my 5 minutes, and a little context about where it came from (and how much i'm the hugest nerd ever?)

okay, so, the bolt bus is probably my favoritest thing of the week. (last week, not quite so much, as i missed the 4:30 bus home, and had to take nj transit / septa without so much as a copy of the shitty metro to keep me occupied...) for those that don't know, the bolt bus is run by greyhound, but is remarkably awesome. it has wireless internet, for starters (well, unless it has one really long wire that stretches up and down the east coast). much like the chinatown bus, it runs a little network between northeast cities - DC, philly, new york and boston, for about $10 each way. cheaper if you buy tickets in advance. which, especially with all the suckers who own cars paying way more than that to drive the same distance, is pretty effing amazing.

but, did i mention it has internet? oh yes. it's like riding a bus into the distant future. like, the year 2000. george jetson sat in the seat ahead of me on the way home yesterday. and it's clean! (you think george jetson would ride a dirty bus?) and i've yet to catch it more than half full. which is nice and comfy, but! tell your friends! we want the bolt bus to be busy enough to schedule trips more frequently! (this business of having to pick between 7:30 and 9:30 to go to NYC in the morning is killing me - come on, bolt bus - 8:30 would be perfect... i can't be the only one...)

now for good reads. in book world, i'm almost through the omnivore's dilemma. i was really into the beginning and middle of it, now i just want to wrap it up. on deck for me in the wide world of books is freakonomics. yay.

in blog world, i've been actually pretty dutiful in keeping my number of unread posts in the my google reader at a minimum lately (okay, admittedly this might be because i just became slightly obsessed with the "mark as read" button there - that tool has been saving my gmail inbox for sometime now, and it's amazing how i feel such a sense of accomplishment in my reader when i use it...) however, lately, i've been big into marveling at how amazing crafty mama jcasa is, i'm always a big fan of stereoette, and i was shocked but totally pleased when i peaked at the front page this week to find the lovely noelle from pinkbathtub (aka jetsetpaper) as the featured seller. woohoo! noelle rules, so send her some love.

etsy-versaries

 

so, i remembered how etsy's third birthday was yesterday, and totally forgot that june 18th is also the anniversary of when i officially started working for etsy. my other etsy anniversary! (i suppose my true etsy-versary is january 3, since i joined the site on the third day of the year in 2006).  it's been quite a year, working for a company as dynamic as etsy and learning to work from home (while also commuting quite often to brooklyn) has been an experience. but i'm happy with the progress the teams program has made in the past year (there are well over 13,000 people on etsy teams now, up from maybe 1,500 when i was hired? i wish i had more solid stats on where things were a year ago...)  sometimes my job feels a little overwhelming, but then i go to one of the workshops i've been running each week since last july in the virtual labs, and i talk to team leaders and members one on one, and hear their ideas and answer questions, and it's all so personal and everything is put back into perspective.

to celebrate one year of rarely leaving my house, i decided to post the nerdiest self portrait thursday ever. enjoy.

ignite! wrap up.

ignite philly was as every bit as intriguing as i knew it would be. i learned lots, for example, that etsy's own media-awesome team member bre pettis actually founded ignite, back when he was in seattle. crazy!

in any case, the videos should be up soon, so those of you who weren't able to make it can check it out. i totally made notes for my five minutes (i can't believe how nervous i was about the whole thing, i honestly don't get nervous very easily), and then proceeded to glance at them but not *really* read them at all while i was up there. which means i didn't say half of what i thought i would, although, i did get out most of what i intended to (crass analogy between a creative space / coworking for makers and a gym included... i didn't actually mean to compare elliptical machines to letterpress machines, but...).

if you have questions, comments, ideas or opportunities you'd like to share, i'm, of course, delighted to discuss!  you can email handmakerphilly [at] gmail [dot] com and i'll happily reply. or you can comment here, of course, and i'll get in touch.

webinar + being old + normal people on craigslist

(yes, that is my janie-dog, snuggling with erik. isn't it so cute you want to vomit, just a little bit?)

so, typepad is holding a webinar on tuesday, and i wish i wasn't going to be in brooklyn when they're holding it, because i would totally go to hear what they have to say. it's about reaching more audience with your blog, which obviously i've given some thought to (not so much with this blog... i'm thrilled you're reading this at all, really).

in other news, i can't believe i'm going to my five year college reunion this weekend. five years? since college? no way. that means i am old, right? i mean, at very least it means i am not young... but i guess it's okay. i'm happy that i'm actually doing something i love now. playing the "what firm are you at" / "where did you get accepted to grad school" game is lame, to say the least.

and! good news! it is possible to have an interaction with normal people on craigslist!  i always forget how many crazies will reply to an ad - i should have remembered this from my craigslist car selling adventures, but after only a few minorly crazy responses to my couch for sale ad, the couch is sold to two completely normal-seeming, rational ladies. nice!  and what am i sitting on now, then, you may wonder? a very pretty upgrade. i'm finally happy with the state of my living room (save for the old couch, which will vanish on saturday...) yay! i'm not the only one to have odd craigslist experiences, right?  i mean, i know when it works, it works, but sometimes the people you have to put up with in the process make it barely worth it...

train thoughts

it took me while to get used to it, but i actually enjoy the time i have to think on the train one day a week now.  yesterday, i did a lot of thinking about etsy teams (yay, who doesn't love thinking about etsy teams?) and just a good bit of daydreaming about possibilities for them.  then on the way home, i finally realized what i want to talk about for five minutes at ignite philly.

coming up with something i wanted to talk about was so much harder than i'd imagined it would be - i've been reading the omnivore's dilemma, which kind of gets to me. it was all i could think about for the past week - big industry has the economy of scale and such a grip on things and (no matter how hard i want it to) shopping organic at whole foods (or the bodegas in my 'hood) probably isn't really changing the world in even a little way (though i feel like the CSA  is a good way to get food - i love their site - "hello, champion of local food!"). and how that translates to handmade items, and what can we do? what can we being doing better? all of it seemed far too depressing for a 5 minute quickie that is supposed to "ignite" and inspire people...

so i focused on thinking about the other five bazillion things i have going on in my mind, side project-wise, and i'm so excited to share my ideas next week now.

as an aside, is anyone else really frustrated with the most recent typepad changes in the compose screen? i used to really enjoy blogging for a couple minutes each day, and the interface was simple enough that i didn't give it much thought (which is the point, right?) but now? so sluggish. it's becoming a chore to log in here and get out what i want to.

bonus weekend

did the bonus weekend throw anyone else off?  having a spare weekend between memorial day and the first real weekend in june was a pleasure, for sure, but confused me in terms of planning fun adventures. luckily, lots of fun adventures still took place, like a picnic in rittenhouse, a viewing of the sex and the city movie (so good. so, so good.), brunch at morning glory and a visit to the farmer's market at headhouse square.

i completely didn't realize, til my good friends, the lovely stellargirl and always-fun ericsmithrocks,clued me in on friday, that art star was actually this weekend, not next. score!  so, of course, cute erik and i biked up to penn's landing to check out the event at its new location and see all the sellers i love who travelled for the event. i got to chat with tashamck, lisa from artgoodies, michelle from ilikeittootoo, supercute inhope, the guys from squidfire, the ever-adorable sue from giantdwarf and yashabutler. and what did i buy? i was hoping you'd ask...

the most unbelievably cute yarn you'll ever see in your life from inhope, a necklace, which i've been meaning to purchase for some time now, from yasha, and birthday gifts for friends from artgoodies, so perfect. seriously. if this is weekend was a sneak peek of the summer to come, it's going to be the best summer ever. amazing.

baltimore, chicago

the other night, i think it was friday after our philly etsy team meeting, i had a dream that i was working, writing something about etsy teams. but i was really upset, because i couldn't promote the baltimore etsy team. why couldn't i promote them? because their leader was a character from the wire, and she'd killed a bitch. and so i couldn't promote the event their team was planning. which... almost makes sense? i mean, at least, in my dream i had the good sense not to market a drugload murdered.

i blame this crazy dream on two things - total addiction to the wire, via netflix, lately and that i think i had the baltimore craft mafia on the brain (maybe because we talked about how i did squidfire last weekend? i have no idea.) in any case, to clarify, the baltimore etsy team seems like a lovely group, and i'm sure they're not actually involved in any drug-related killings.

so, speaking of cities (and that i need a vacation), we're going to chicago soon. i've never been. any suggestions on what we should do there?