i feel like my sweet tooth is dominating my bloggity these days, but i think that's okay. today i made nerdy America-colored trifle: white cake, vanilla (and chocolate) pudding, whipped cream, fresh strawberries and fresh jersey blueberries. it's not quite as fourth grade as the amazing fourth-of-july mixed sprinklepack from last year, when i decorated the amazing cupcake-cones that i toted around the city on my bike, but it's close.
have a great night!
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.
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!
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:
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!
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.
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.
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!
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.
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.
