all things girls can tell

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.

clutter, unclutter, declutter, anticlutter.

ive been somewhat obsessed with decluttering, cleaning out, organizing and ridding my little house of things i don't use, forgot i had, no longer want and find needless. and it feels good. the idea is that perhaps this purging of the things i've amassed but no longer want will cure me of my impulsive buying habits. (i consider my growing collections of amazingness to be an occupational hazard, as i do work for the best place in the world to buy amazing things...)

the sewing room and office are somewhat sufficently declutterized now, i've about half-way tackled my bedroom (eep! my closet! for a lady who really doesn't leave her house often, my oh my, do i have gobs of clothes. and shoes. and earrings. and handbags.), and my basement is the mount everest i'm hoping to tackle later this summer. cute erik and i saw these smart storage boxes in the gift shop at the art institute in chicago a few weekends ago, and i coveted them then (but figured bringing them on the plane would be just silly), but in going through my google reader, i discovered them featured on unclutterer.

so, the next step is to figure out what to do with the growing mounds of stuff that i don't want (most of which is perfectly good, i just don't want it in my house anymore). i'll probably end up giving most of it to goodwill, although it kills me just a little to know how much cash i've spent on things, only to decide a short while later it doesn't have any place being in my little house... anyone in the philadelphia area know of any good upcoming flea markets i might have a chance at reserving a table at? (and, yes, tables for the punk rock flea market are indeed sold out...) i've got jewelry, cd's, clothes, accessories, crafting supplies, kitchen goodies, some furniture... it's as if i need to have a moving sale, only i totally plan on staying put when it's over.

mishmosh.

kevin thoroughly recaps ignite philly (complete with all my crude gym equipment analogies...).  but enough of ignite philly, for now. except to say that we've informally begun space hunting (not shooting robbots and aliens, but rather, a low-key brainstorm / keep our eyes open means of potentially finding somewhere to actually make a handmaker space happen. yay.)

so, i mentioned last week that i was going down to my alma mater for my 5 year reunion this past weekend. and it was lovely, as charlottesville always is, excepting the fact that it was, quite literally, 100 degrees out. it probably got down to about 88 and humid around 10pm, but it the weather certainly made talking to someone you haven't seen in five years about what you're doing now when you have beads of sweat streaming from your brow while standing still is awkward, to say the least. but we went to the architecture school luncheon at dean van lengen's pavillion on the lawn (and if the a-school foundation ever tells us where we should direct letters to keep her from being booted for some over-hyped comm school sellout professor to move in, i'll gladly post it here and write to keep architecture represented on the lawn). the dean asked what i was up to these days, so i explained that i live in philadelphia and work for an internet venue based in brooklyn. she seemed... well, it wasn't the answer she was expecting, but she seemed pleased to hear i'm not doing something awful.

training for the half marathon is now in full effect, i made my way through my first four-mile-plus run this year this morning. i'm psyched for a 5 miler on sunday. i know i've posted it before, but the gmap pedometer is the most brilliant tool for runners, ever.  enjoy!

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.

ignite philly

"If you had five minutes on stage what would you say? What if you only got 20 slides and they rotated automatically after 15 seconds? Around the world, geeks have been putting together Ignite nights to show their answers"

so, i'm completely flattered (also, slightly initimidated) to be one of the 5 minute speakers at ignite philly on june 11 at johnny brenda's.  the event promises to be pretty wonderful - with people behind pretty sweet  projects like indy hall, future of music coalition and isepta sharing insights and ideas on their work.  if you're in or near philadelphia,  plan on coming out to look, listen and hopefully leave with a spark of something good.

in other news, it's farm share season in full effect!  the greens from the lancaster farm fresh csa have been totally amazing so far this season - last night, we enjoyed a baby lettuce mix (quite possibly the freshest thing i think i've ever tasted) dressed with just a splash of red wine vinegar and some fresh black pepper. amazing. i love summer.

raincoats, take a guess and bike to work day.

the only good thing about it raining on bike to work day is that i really needed to water my tree today (yes, by tree i mean the little tree in my little island of trash...), and now i probably won't have to.

so, i'll give you all til sunday to guess how much change is in the jar by leaving a comment. i know you're reading, why not leave a guess? i'm picking two commenters at random to send a package of girlscantell funsies to, as well.

the other day, i decided i really needed a raincoat the other day. my criteria was that it needed to have a hood, and not look like a mom-raincoat (you know what i mean). of course, the first place i checked was etsy. there wasn't much in the way of handmade raincoats listed, except from hacker, which had this amazing reddish pink coat listed, but a little out of my raincoat price-range. so, tempted as i was, i checked my paypal account and decided to keep looking.  after a few frustrating searches that kept leading me to the inevitable lands-end-epitome-of-mom style coats, i checked the kenneth cole site, because kenneth cole can pretty much do no wrong, right? 

well. not so much on the trenches with hoods from kenneth cole.  (come on, desginers! hoods can be awesome!  make it work! where is tim gunn when you need him? outerwear shouldn't be such a chore!)  then i ended up at bluefly, which i'd heard a lot about, but never actually shopped on before. after much hemming and hawing, and a brief encounter with a well meaning but fairly useless 'personal shopper', i finally decided on this one. so, fingers crossed that it a) arrives before we leave for chicago and b) is everything i've ever wanted in a raincoat.  who knew a nice looking, hooded coat would be so hard to find?

bike to work week and awesomeness

so, apparently, it's bike to work week. i did bike to the train station today for work, and maybe i'll bike around the block and back to my house every other morning to celebrate. speaking of bikes, i'm listing all the goodies i made for squidfire that didn't get bought up all week. yay.

i have this habit of buying real simple magazine on days i commute up to brooklyn, and then i usually read it on the train on the way home and i get so amped about whatever lame thing they have on the cover - like "99 ways to organize your shoe closet" or "best herb gardens for your backyard" and i'm like YEAH! then i get home, file the magazine away on my shelf (see? i don't even need any help being organized), and don't ever think about doing all those silly things ever again. surely, i'm not the only one who does this, right? i mean, have you even seen my backyard? (hint: at a whopping 7'9" x 14'5", it's probably smaller than that shoe closet they've been working on...)

okay. i'm curious why there aren't more guesses are left via comments on the change jar post. i'll give you all about a week... how much do you think is in there? maybe you'll guess lucky and a set of beautiful girlscantell placemats will arrive at your doorstep... you never know. and you certainly won't get any goodies without guessing.

community and some advice, please.

i could try to sum up last night's junto, but odds are i wouldn't be as articulate as rick is for junto.org, so i'll just point those who are interested there...  also, i'm very much looking forward to whatever and whenever next junto is. as usual, it was a total pleasure having a great conversation with so many interesting, well-spoken members of the community.

so, i've been trying to figure out how to best spend the little time i have for making stuff for squidfire (since, basically, i've left making any goods to sell up to practically the last minute. superfun.)  i'm thinking some useful little zippy pouches (a la my little tutorial here), along with the usual assortment of fun printed housewares - placemats, mitts, potholders, trivets, coasters, dishtowels and cloth-napkins... all sorts of fun printed goodness.   what do you think? what would you bring most of? what would you want to see if you were browsing around the art mart on a gorgeous late spring day?