all things girls can tell

creative communities

i'm really looking forward to tonight's junto on creative communities.  about a year ago, it dawned on me that pretty much everything i was doing was contributing to some emerging community in some way. from being an active part of the neighborhood association where i live, to making a living organizing a global creative community, the focus of most of my energy is spent working with people to work together to achieve goals that we can't achieve individually.  lately, i've been talking with a few people who have an interest in, well, basically combining these two things - place and making - to make a really dynamic collaborative force. hopefully, this junto is progress toward the creation of something kind of amazing in south philly. 

mr. bill is totally my hero.

so, where have i been? what have i been doing that is just whittling down the hours of the day, leaving none for blogging?  how am i even filling the hours?

i've been, of course, just incredibly busy: with running the etsy teams, with enjoying the brilliant weather, making smoothies, planning the first ever but totally awesome newbold neighbors neighborhood beer tour, and trying to free my bike from the clutches of the u-lock that i lost the key to.  also, thinking about making stuff.  not actually making stuff, but really thinking about how i should be making things. beautiful, wonderful, useful, sellable things.

last night we had the pleasure of seeing i'm from barcelona play the first unitarian, which was so unbelievably great - they're probably the best show i've seen in a good three years. (at first i thought their website was swedish, not english, but sure enough, it is english).  if i can make it through an entire show in the basement of the church and actually want the band to play an encore (or, in i'm from barcelona's case, play an encore which becomes a full-on dance party and ends with a conga-line started by the lead singer), you know it's a good show. because that venue is miserable, especially in anything resembling warm weather.

so, in other news, my latest debacle / fiasco / what-was-i-thinking was that my bike was locked to my stoop and i lost the key to the lock. how could i be so ridiculous? well. let me explain. i've had this u-lock for most of the time i've lived in philly - like more than two and a half years. and probably about 6 months after i got it, the little plastic part on the top of the key broke off, so i had to be super careful where i'd put the key (and putting it on my keyring was no longer an option).  so finally, i got another lock, one with a key that didn't require so much mindfulness.  and i promptly lost the key to the first lock, for the first time ever, the last time i ever needed to unlock the old lock.  so. i polled the internet (thanks to all those who submitted helpful tweets and responded to my myspace cry for help) and finally, my super sweet neighbor, mr. bill came over with a saw he bought that cuts iron, and sawed the lock off in about twenty minutes. which is how it came to be that mr. bill is now officially my hero.

seven more facts, my yard and the cleanup.

the warm(er) weather has been great lately, although you wouldn't know it from the lack of progress i've made on my yard, and i've also yet to get my little flower pots planted next to my stoop.  but soon!  the city-wide cleanup was a giant success, according to the email the mayor sent today, so that's great.  i think for the next few weekends, i need to spend some time specifically working on my little house, though...

i've been tagged by rachael, which means i should write 7 weird or random facts that you might not already know about me...

• in kindergarten, when i barely had any hair, a little girl cut a big chunk of my hair off in arts and crafts, and for some reason, i decided to put it in my lunchbox to bring home and show my mom.
• i really like seth godin's blog.
• i probably have more conversations at my dog than with any one person i know.
• until last summer, i'd never had bok choy, but now it's one of my favorite veggies.
• i like the way some blocks in my neighborhood smell in early summer.
• recently, i've begun eating meat again, after being a vegetarian (mostly) for nearly 10 years.
• i usually have about a dozen projects of all different kinds going on any given day.

so, there you have it.  what odd things should i know about you? 

philadelphia, springtime and my sewing machine.

 

two articles had me all aflutter this morning:
- this one on the recently opened devil's den (dogfish head red + white on draft? amazing.)
- and this one on the newbold grocery co-op i've been trying to start up

and, of course, i'm pretty excited about the city-wide cleanup this weekend.  so, the plan is to participate in the cleanup and get working on my backyard (assuming we don't have the buckets of rain they promised for today tomorrow instead...). also, my sewing machine totally told me how much it misses me last night, so i'll be trying to spend some quality time with it this weekend, as well.  so much to do!

happy birthday, bloggity!

one whole year!
i honestly didn't know if i would care for blogging much, and was hesitant to pay for an entire year on typepad (it seemed like a long time!), but, as it turns out, i kind of really love blogging.  one whole year and 213 posts later, it seems as though i have more to say that i thought! i guess it's partly because i'm kind of super busy all the time.

here's the past year...

• lost one great roommate (she's now a proud homeowner),
• suffered through about a month of the most terrible roommate on the planet (UG.),
• celebrated my first houseversary,
• quit my 'day job' and switched careers because i got my dream job working for etsy (YAY!),
• printed diagrams onto hundreds of fun things,
• re-did my spare rooms into a great little office and girlscantell world headquarters,
• bought more furniture than i care to admit,
• went to las vegas, phoenix, ithaca, and milwaukee (among other places) and met amazing artists from all over the country,
• hit over 500 sales in my little etsy shop,
• wrestled the strong arm of the insurance industry (the outcome of that battle remains to be seen),
• joined the secret yacht club and rowed the schuylkill,
• new diagram designs!,
• met gobs of totally amazing philly people,
• went to brooklyn about 783 times,
• did a lot of painting of walls,
• grew my hair out pretty long (and now i'm eyeing up short haircuts again...),
• got a new little tree in front of my house!,
• sold at squidfire, art star and other really great shows,
• met sweet and wonderful cute erik (he's the best boy ever),
• convinced said erik to buy a house in my neighborhood (HA!),
• did a lot of participating in my new neigborhood association,
• became a tree tender!,
• met and became great friends with wonderamy
• did a lot of bike riding all over the city,
• saw probably a dozen really great shows,
• took a class at the philly sewing collective... 

i could go on for a very long time! (and i'm sure i forgot some awesome, ridiculous and fabulous things that happened this year...)

thanks, all, for sharing your comments, thoughts, conversations and things over the past year! i look forward to another year of amazingness and superadventures in the months to come. 
xoxo,
sara girlscantell.

beer week and being busy.

things have been so busy, but in such a good way, lately. i'm almost done with the renovations i so ambitiously set out to tackle almost a month ago. although i finally snagged a vehicle big enough to make a trip to ikea totally worthwhile (aka, a car that doesn't require the convertible top being down to fit the shelves i've been eyeing into it), we went to the self serve area, only to be extremely disappointed that the big shelves, which would be the most perfect thing for the sewing room, were out of stock. (well, it comes in three boxes, and they had two of box 1 of 3, but no boxes 2 of 3 or 3 of 3...) NO! silly ikea. that's not useful at all.

so, what's new for this week is that we're in the midst of the first annual philly beer week. we went to the tap room yesterday evening to try the new newbold IPA, named for our new little 'hood (a totally drinkable IPA, even for those, like me, who aren't such fans of hoppy beers like IPA's). i'm pretty excited about the 'meet the brewer' dinner we're going to tomorrow evening, as well as other ridiculous beer-loving events, like beer nerd quizzo. philly's such a great place to live if you love beer, as in beer paired with food and beer as an art form, not keg-stand-drink-your-face-off type of beer, of course.

super new neighbors!

so, i'm very excited. so, so excited. what am i this excited about? well, my boyfriend, the wonderfully sweet cute erik, finally, on his third attempt, has closed on a house. which is really totally awesome in and of itself, but selfishly i'm really happy that the house he finally bought is not in fishtown (which i so lovingly referred to as 'an entirely different city' on our first date) but rather right here in south philly. newbold, to be exact. yay! score one for newbold neighbors! so as of today, he lives about two blocks from my little house, which i think is ridiculous (in a good way) and really great.

my other plans for the day include printing and mailing every single package which i need to mail today, because mailing things out has been a weakness and a bit of a challenge lately. going to brooklyn for half the week really throws off my schedule of doing mundane but necessary everyday things, like laundry and visits to my friendly postal ladies. i'm also really excited about a small series of collaged pieces which i'm going to create then print, hopefully, for little paper planes. i'm crossing my fingers something amazing comes out of my printing endeavors today. i don't typically print on solid, flat surfaces.

super awesome. it's too bad the weather is such terribleness today, because, otherwise, it's a pretty great day.

surprise gifts, nice neighbors and lovely floors

so, this morning, erik, janie-dog and i were coming back into the house, and the neighbor that i share a stoop with, who i admittedly haven't gotten to know as well as i'd like, opened her door and called my name. i peeked over, said good morning, and she handed me this cake-loaf that you see above. she doesn't speak english incredibly well (or maybe i just don't listen to the english she speaks close enough) but how sweet is that? such a nice gesture, especially considering i've felt like a pretty lousy neighbor these past couple days. we've been making lots and lots of noise, because of a special house project requiring very loud machines...

new floors... everywhere!

i know i've been talking about how i'm in the midst of redoing my sewing room, and when we discovered hardwood hiding under that carpet, it got us thinking about how i probably have carpet in my back room, as well. so all the stuff you see piled in here is now piled in my bedroom and living room, along with all the materials we took up - layers of carpet, padding and plywood (til i found some good way of recycling / disposing of it all). so the house is a complete wreck, but my floors are going to be quite lovely. the whole weekend was spent prepping and sanding and moving things about and being covered in dust, but the results are exactly what i'd hoped for. i guess that makes all the craziness worth it.

snow and old houses.

it's been completely frigid in philadelphia (well, probably most of the northeast) this week, and today it's not only snowing, but actually (finally) sticking where it lands. this could be the first accumulation of snow we've seen this year. in honor of the occasion, the pipes to my kitchen sink have done their annual freeze. luckily, i'm not as freaked out by this occurrence as i was last year when i was still a complete newbie at owning my house (and sat in the kitchen cabinet under my sink with a hairdryer, patiently trying to warm up the pipes). i was nervous all day yesterday in brooklyn that i'd come home to find something had exploded while i was at work for the day, but it's just frozen frozen frozen, so it doesn't seem like any freeze-thaw messes will happen anytime soon. the only thing that killing me about it is that today would be such a lovely day to make a homemade soup, but cooking when you don't have a kitchen sink isn't really very tempting, so i'll probably convince sweet erik to go out to dinner with me instead.

on the bright side, when i got home from my neighborhood web committee meeting last night, i finally got around to looking at paint samples for the big wall by my stairs, and hanging all the great square prints i've been collecting and framing in my hallway. it's like a little gallery now! this past fall, i made a point of getting great little prints, about 5"x5" from some of my favorite etsy illustrators. so i'm pleased to say that i have a little print from askey illustration (i'd been eyeing one of her lady feet prints for some time), two from john w. golden, two from jimbot (who i squealed at when i met at art vs. craft in july), two from an artist who i've seen work by all over but can't for the life of me think of their name (but they're lovely prints), and one from im smitten (which i so proudly showed you back in september).

also, i was so happy to catch up with amy wondercabinet on my train ride back from brooklyn last night. she's always up to something amazing, and our conversations made me really want to start doing some sort of layering or collage to print on and attempting to do my diagrams on paper and flat surfaces and not just the useful goods i've been focusing on lately. very exciting.

so, it's official. winter is all about nesting and making pretty things and making the spaces inside pretty, and summer is nice weather, when the plan is to be inside as little as possible. yay.

full and empty spaces.

i couldn't be more pleased with the progress on the sewing room. from the pleasant surprise of hidden hardwood to how positively lovely the space feels now that it's a real room again (basically, when i bought my house, it was the only room with a closet. so i made an opening from the back of that closet into my bedroom so that my bedroom would have a closet. until this week, i'd been to busy / lazy to build a wall there, so i had this crazy little nebulous space where it was only a bunch of clothes, hangers, shelves full of sewing materials and shipping supplies separating my bedroom from my sewing room). it's a nice little space. the window is east facing, so it gets nice morning and daytime light, and i just can't get over how much of an improvement simply removing carpet can be.

in the meanwhile, of course, i had to put all that stuff somewhere, so girlscantell headquarters has been squatting in my office (unofficial etsy teams headquarters?). and the contents of my closet are piled all over my bedroom, inspiring me to a) stop buying new clothes. for real this time. and b) to actually make the trip over to goodwill to donate some clothing and shoes sooner than later. it does make me realize how glad i am to not be moving anytime soon. i can't wait til things are in order again - i don't miss the chaos of packing and unpacking, sorting through to find things and inevitably losing that one thing you had never noticed was so crucial before.

also, since i have yet to order the books for etsy book club, i've been rereading jane jacob's "the death and life of great american cities", and it's every bit as right on as i remembered from college (back in the day when i thought i might be an urban planning minor, and had no idea that what i would actually be doing for a living was shaping a virtual community rather than a physical one). her observations on neighborhoods, human interaction and public / private spaces just ring so true, especially as i watch my neighborhood slowly but surely shift and change. it's a fun re-read.