all things girls can tell

best week ever.

holiday weeks (especially when there is a birthday involved) are the best. last night we had tapas at amada, tonight is bowling (yay! bowling! i'm probably the most inconsistent bowler on the planet!), thursday is karaoke obscura and friday is the fourth of july. what could be better?

in other news, i had the absolute best etsy transaction last week - cute erik spied this amazing "bicycles are for lovers" shirt featuring a sweet little illustration of a tandem in marc from bminus's etsy shop. since i noticed he lives in philly, when i bought it, i asked if he would mind if i picked it up somewhere, instead of him having to mail it. sure enough, he said i could catch him working at a coffee house on 22nd that evening, which happened to be on my way to tree tenders class last week. so the whole thing could not have been more convenient, and marc couldn't have been any sweeter. the shirt was well wrapped and the package decorated when i received it, he included great hand-printed cards, and it's so, so much cuter in person than i was expecting - it's such a nice shirt! and the printing on it is fantastic! the colors are super fun and altogether, the whole thing may be my most favorite etsy buyer experience yet. amazing! so, if you love bikes, check out marc's shop, too!

old screens, new screens, list machines.

this weekend i was a total list-making machine, and i completed dominated. i got tons done, and i owe it all to the handy dry-erase board in my kitchen. tomorrow is cute erik's birthday, so this evening i'll be trying my hand at a recipe from the cake doctor cookbook (the cake doctor has a blog? who knew?) for the first time. i'm going to try the lemon - lime cake with pineapple icing / topping (she calls it a pineapple curd, but that sounds too hansel and gretal for me). it sounds summery and delicious (though full of corn syrup, now that i'm thinking about it), so we'll see.

one of the things i was able to cross off the list was a trip to the art store, to return some stuff, but also to check if they happened to have any emulsion in, and miraculously, they did. so cute erik and i coated some screens last night, and if all goes well (ie, i didn't muck up the screens *and* we don't get coerced into having a pint with neighbors at the tap room after the neighborhood meeting), we'll be burning some new screens this evening, and reclaiming old screens for new designs. yay!

newsflash

okay, newsflash: the six feet under box set arrived via fed ex this morning.
so i will probably not be leaving my house for the next month or so.

(except to sell at squidfire. and go to chicago. probably i also need to go to brooklyn for work. and the junto tomorrow. and that wedding i need to go to on saturday... and i guess see my mom on mother's day, since i'm the only daughter she has on the east coast... all this leaving my house stuff is really interupting my plans to be a hermit and watch the best. show. ever. geez.)

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.

seeds and social networking for plants.

i finally got around to planting my little recycled garden full of seeds this weekend, so i was pretty excited about that, although i'm a little concerned it was too late.  i know flowers suffer if you plant them too early, but what about planting them about a month late? harmless, right?

so, i started by hammering a couple holes into the bottom of each little egg-cubbie and container that i was using, for drainage. 

then i mixed together some vermiculite with some soil.  vermiculite adds fluffiness to the dirt (this stuff is lighter than air - seriously, the bag looks like it's going to weigh like 25 pounds, then it weighs like 8 oz. in reality when you pick it up).  this is to prevent the soil from getting too compacted, muddy and water-logged, which is important, since you need to water baby seeds a lot.

now you have soil and a container to put it in.  what kinds of seeds?  yay! all sorts of things!  i planted allysum, impatiens and bachelor buttons (flowers), parsley, mint, oregano and basil (herbs).  so, i'll have (hopefully) a good, solid little herb garden and some little flowers to plant around my little tree soon.

for those who haven't planted seeds before (did you skip third grade? everyone's planted seeds, right?) you want to make sure you don't cover them too deeply in soil - the little tiny seeds only need a very thin covering of dirt on them to protect them while they grow.  then, you can use a clean squirty bottle to spritz water on them frequently to make sure the soil is moist (without disturbing the seeds like a flood from a watering can might).

labelling the seeds is highly recommended, so you know what's what.  i used these reusable little plastic stake markers.  also, keep the packets the seeds come in, so when it's time to put them in the big dirt outside, you know the proper spacing, sunlight needs, etc.  it's tempting to want to stick the packets *in* the dirt with the seeds, but with how much water you're going to give the little seeds, don't do it - the paper packets get messy and illegible that way.

(sorry for the sideways image. i have no idea why it does that to portrait-photos).
anyway. i also transplanted my sweet apple-scented geranium into a real pot, along with my aloe plant.  i got both of them at the philadelphia flower show, and i hope they'll work in their respective pots (i've been a geranium killer lately, but i'm crossing my fingers on this one). 

a couple weeks ago, through flickr, i got a little note from some people who were starting what seemed like a social networking site for plants (although, that makes little to no sense - i guess i mean a socially networky site for people to talk about and post their plants. oh, i don't know...) called myfolia. needless to say, i do think this is a pretty fun idea, i'm just not sure i'd have time to update it often enough, with the ten bazillion things i have going on.  but you should try it!

there is nothing i can name this post that's not over-the-top geeky.

so, i realized this morning as i sat down, completely pumped to use the g-map pedometer (yes, i know the google people didn't make it, but it's still amazing) and make a google document to track the progress my new running partner (who is totally awesome, by the way) and i are making, that i'm probably addicted to google.  i like it to be a part, in some way, any way, of pretty much everything i do.  is that weird? is it really so wrong? i think it's a good thing... sort of. 

i have a google document for the grocery co-op committee and i use google documents for work constantly, i want to use google maps in some way to map out and document the usefulness of all the little corner stores in my neighborhood. when i started the philly etsy team, i started a google group for everyone, then i did the same for all the etsy team leaders. i used to use google image as the base to make ridiculous graphics to send to friends (via gmail, but of course) when i needed to prove a point or just be absurd (now i'm more a flickr fan for images), and i honestly think of my gmail account as the main hub of organization in my life. that g-chats can be recorded and referred to later? brilliant. 

(okay, that's better. i just had to get my google obsession out in the open. yay.)
(also, i don't have a google document or google group for the dalmation building on 6th, i just was walking by it yesterday, and i heard some time ago the new owner's planning on painting over him, so i thought i'd take photo... in case you were wondering...)

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.

yarn, flowers, spring and dirt.

it's been a busy, busy week here, but it feels like spring is so close, so i'm generally pretty excited about everything. i finally finished my new rooms, and you'll get a peek of them soon, i promise. in the meanwhile, my newest project has been creating a blank slate out of my backyard. i didn't do much of anything in the back yard last summer (well, i stuck a grill out there and popped back to grill some pineapple on occasion) because of this ugly stump growing amid a tangled mess of concrete, which was somehow totally overgrown with weeds taller than me when i moved in (weeds, although pesky and annoying, amaze me in that way). anyway, i finally found someone to remove the stump and concrete ugly, and so now i have this little patch of dirt. the potential is limitless!

obviously, i want to include some garden space in my little yard, and then i'm probably do some recycled brick on about half of it, so that it's permeable (doesn't create rainwater runoff - i'd love to also collect the rainwater from my roof and make a system of storing it so i can use it to irrigate my tiny garden, but i don't know if i'll get that this year - but then only about 15% of my small bit of land would be contributing to the city's runoff problems, which is awesome). so, in anticipation of said garden, i've been collecting materials to start some seedlings inside.

i'll post more photos of the progress, but i've been upcycling my egg cartons into little seed-starters, and will punch a little hole in each egg-hole and then the whole lot of cartons sits on plastic trays with about a half inch lip, so that they can drain onto the tray. since i think this windowsill will be the best light for the seedlings, but i need more space on it, i picked up one of those wire shelves you use to make more shelf space in your cabinets so that i can have a double-decker arrangement of the trays. i couldn't be more excited about my mini-greenhouse. yay.

lastly, look at the beautiful hand-dyed, handspun yarn i custom ordered from darlingbuddesigns! so beautiful!

best things ever, for this week.

i'm recently embracing a newly acquired taste for peppermint tea. i discovered that i actually like peppermint tea a couple weeks ago when i was at the etsy labs and craving some kind of delicious fruit tea, but could only find mint tea in the etsy kitchen. to my surprise, i've been craving mint tea more often ever since. mint tea for a slightly sore throat? kind of awesome.

and why the sore throat? probably from all the talking i've been doing this week! we've been cooped up here at the labs all week, working diligently on making etsy better from the inside out. i'm so excited about all the great things we're accomplishing this week on the community end. i love the teams program, and i'm so psyched that i'm really seeing progress on getting new tools and help for running the teams so we can finally take them to a whole new level of awesome. i feel like i was hired to make the teams more amazing, but since the teams program has been expanding so quickly, it's been a full time job just keeping up with them, much less making them more awesome (it should be noted: the teams do a fantastic job of making themselves pretty unbelievably awesome). so, the opportunities to make more awesome seem right around the corner, and i couldn't be happier. sometimes i absolutely love my job. it's nice to when you realize you're doing the exact thing you want to be doing for a living.

the other thing i'm pretty happy about this week is working with people in my neighborhood on a food co-op! i'll talk more about it soon. promise.

bonnie and clyde, the knitting machines.

so, last night i was in brooklyn because i was working at the etsy labs yesterday (and i'll be running a virtual workshop here, complete with webcam! at 3pm). one of my lovely coworkers invited me to crash at her apartment, and on the way there, mentioned that they have not one, but two knitting machines in their apartment. this totally blew my mind. i'd heard of kntiting machines before, but never really gave them much thought. but as someone who has done a fair amount of knitting, the very idea of it intrigued me. how on earth does a knitting machine work?

um, yeah. knitting machines are totally intense and amazing. i should have taken a photo. and now? i totally want one. (stay tuned for when i blog about my adventures in procuring a knitting machine? as if i don't already have more side projects and hobbies than any sane person should?)