i couldn't be more excited that it's friday. not only do we have a great afternoon in brooklyn planned, but i have very few plans for the rest of the weekend, and i'm looking forward to burning some new screens and doing a lot of printing and organizing.
hooray for summer days!
i couldn't get over how much the smell of beets reminds me of my grandmother as i was peeling and chopping the bunch i'd gotten from my CSA today. beets are totally the kind of food i forget i love til the're in my face, and then i remember that they're pretty much the best thing ever. i'm hoping i manage to do them justice in preparing them, and crossing my fingers there will be more in next week's share.
this weekend was, for the most part, pretty great. we snuck down to DC for the weekend, where a lot of relaxing, napping and drinking of wine commenced. we also managed to get to the fdr memorial (the best presidential memorial - a narrative in landscape architecture - totally awesome), the national gallery, the washington monument (erik claimed he'd never been there), and we caught a sousa festival at the jefferson monument. awesome. sadly, the portrait gallery (which i've never visted but is high on my list for next time) was temporarily closed, along with the museum of american history (which is my favorite smithsonian for two easy reasons: ice cream parlor, dorothy's ruby slippers). walking along king street in old town after dinner, we happened upon a funny little independently owned theatre showing "get smart", that served wine and ice cream (okay, so maybe normal people don't pair these things, but they're both delicious and you know it). so our movie-going experience was unexpectedly fun, even if the movie was a little disappointing (sorry, steve carrell, but i really enjoyed the get smart of my nick-at-night days more).
things to be excited about this week?
tree tenders leadership training, a brooklyn cyclone's game, a revival of the philadelphia bloggers meetup group, and a wheat beer festival at the south philly tap room, for starters... yay.
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!
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?
so, squidfire, in typical squidfire fashion, was a pretty great show. not super stressful crowded, but a fun trip to baltimore (which, since we're pretty deeply entrenched into season one of the wire, was kind of entertaining in and of itself), and a really nice day (once those am showers cleared up...). we got to see some great etsy sellers - built in pittsburgh (remember when they were jetsetter in philadelphia?), drgceramics (i bought a mug! yay!), rebounddesigns, imogeneandannie and so many more... this was cute erik's first time helping at a show, and i think he was surprised at how... relaxing? (i kind of never relax, so this was probably surprising...) it is once you're there and set up, just sitting and enjoying the weather and conversation with whoever stops by. so nice.
you need to watch this amazing, robot-lovin' video by crankbunny. so amazing, beautiful and brilliant.
in other news, i'm planning on visiting the penny arcade change counter thing at commerce bank soon, with my nearly-full half gallon of change. so, since last year was fun, i'm taking guesses again at how much is in the jar. to give everyone a fair shot, last year's total was $186.37, but the jar was a bit more full than it is this time around. price is right style rules apply (again), and two other commenters who leave a guess will also get a little girlscantell treat. so, comment away with your guesses!
i can't believe april's almost over. but it is.
this weekend i ran the philadelphia clean air 5k with indyhallfitclub (and now stellargirl and i have big plans to make the race shirts much cuter, of course).
i also got to take a trip to the only sonic in new jersey for raspberry lime fizzee slushee (or whatever it's called) this weekend (you can see janie trying to decide what to order above). we were wondering, as we enjoyed our crazy sonic beverages, why, with americans so in love with cars and driving, drive-in movies aren't all the rage anymore. think about how awesome it would be if your local target parking lot did double duty as a drive-in theatre... it's not like there aren't acres and acres of parking lots littering up the land all over surburbia, right?
happy earth day. and, if you're a resident of our fine state of pennsyltucky, don't forget to vote.
ps.
dear septa token machines:
by my calculations, $5 buys 3 tokens at $1.45 each, not two. math is not that hard.
love, sara.
okay, so i blogged about peppermint tea the other day, and since then, i got to tour the celestial seasonings plant, where they make all their tea bags from blends of fresh ingredients. and the peppermint room? oh my. ooooh my. it was just enchanting. you walk in to a giant garaged-off room in their enormous warehouse (full of amazing smells, and i don't even have a great sense of smell) and the peppermint just soaks into you. your eyes begin to water just a bit because it's so strong, and you can smell it on your clothes for the rest of the day. it was so unbelievably aromatic and refreshing, i'll never be able to have a cup of peppermint tea again without thinking of that amazing room.
which i guess leads me to explain that i've been in boulder, colorado, visiting my sister for the past few days. it was pretty awesome, i'd never seen the rockies before, and boulder was a sweet town (another college town that made me think pretty hard about charlottesville, which i love). i decided, at some point, that llamas are perhaps mythical animals, much like unicorns, and so i was pretty excited to take some photos of a bunch of llamas on our way back from the amphitheatre at red rocks. (and the photo above is the completely beautiful stained glass ceiling in the lobby of the boulderado hotel).
also, i got to do some exploring into all of the little boutiques, artist co-ops, galleries and other shops where local people sell their handmade wares, so that was really great. i saw lots of familiar pieces from some of my favorite etsy shops, and got to chat with the owner of a fabulous little vintage store who had an etsy shop (but is now pretty busy running her brick and mortar). and, of course, i bought some amazing things (ie, way too many sundresses...).
i'll be posting some new things into the girlscantell shop all week, so keep checking in to see some new printed amazingness!
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?)
oh my, i missed the last day of nablopoblah whatever it's called.
this week is going to be super busy, as a result of my sneaking off this weekend on a little getaway to... vegas! so i spent 48 hours in sin city. we started the weekend at a totally fabulous spa, and then ended our little rendezvous watching the las vegas marathon begin its way down the strip before we went to bed saturday night (er, i guess that would make it sunday morning, eh?) superfun. vegas has the all time funniest skyline of any city in the world, and we thoroughly enjoyed the hotels themed after entire cities. we totally rocked new york new york (aka 'fake new york'), venice and paris all in a single weekend. ridiculous.
anyway, now i'm home and looking forward to doing a lot of printing, wrapping, even some sewing, and shipping for all the orders that have been rolling into girlscantell shop and then even more printing for all the upcoming shows i'll be doing in the next two weeks. yay!
i'm thinking of having a contest early next year, but i'm trying to come up with a good idea for one. thinking of fun things like that is hard! the change-jar contest i had earlier this year (back when my blog was just a little blogling) was pretty fun, so i'll try to come up with something along those lines. hmm...
