October 29, 2007
At Home America Party
I have a growing list of things I want to order from At Home America this year, including a magazine rack for my husband's burgeoning magazine collection. Since I haven't heard that anyone else is hosting a party, I thought I might put feelers out and see if anyone else would be interested.
In order to get our orders in time for Christmas, we would have to schedule something in November or very early December. Luckily, Becca has a few open Saturdays and has graciously offered up her own home as a destination. Would anyone be interested in heading up to my place on the evening of November 17 after my craft show for a small party? If you were already heading up for the craft show, you could enjoy a little more shopping in the area (like the fabulous scrapbooking store just down the road) before heading to my place. And then there's the afternoon of December 1, which might be cutting it a little close for those people who do lots of holiday activities.
So, would November 17 or December 1 work for any of you?
Posted by criminal at 2:31 PM | Comments (0)
Double Trouble
The Red Sox are World Champions again. The undefeated Patriots continue to dominate every team that gets in their path. What more can you ask for on a Sunday in late October? Heck, even the weather (sunny and crisp) and dinner (homemade chicken pot pie and an spiced almond and pear pie) were perfect.
Posted by criminal at 1:13 PM | Comments (0)
October 24, 2007
Whatever Pops Up
The entire company is going to end up binging on sweets tonight without knowing why. And it's my fault. I am apparently a very wicked person. Not just evil, but very wicked. All because I popped a bag of microwave popcorn. Yummy candy corn flavored popcorn which filled the office with a scent that reminded everyone of warm pound cake with gooey icing. And sugar cookies. And buttery yellow cake with sickeningly sweet, fluffy frosting. I gave samples and told them all where I got it. But the smell, which is lingering even three hours later, is making everyone crave real sweets. Myself included.
Posted by criminal at 7:02 PM | Comments (0)
October 21, 2007
Game Seven
Jon and Steve are at Fenway, just in front of the Dunkin' Dugout, psyched up for game seven of the ALCS. Meanwhile, I can't bring myself to turn away from the television coverage. As much as everyone complains about Fox, that terribly cliched musical score they use feels right tonight. It just adds to the nervous feeling in the pit of my stomach.
Posted by criminal at 8:03 PM | Comments (1)
October 18, 2007
What's In a Name?
Just under a month until the craft fair and I'm cranking out cute little notebooks, memo pads, and cards. I've also been brainstorming my display. And more than a few people have mentioned that I need to include business cards and an email addresses with everything I sell at the craft fair. Some have also suggested banners sporting my company name and other kinds of branding. Which sounded like a good idea that I could execute easily until I realized that I don't have a company name. Criminal Grace has a nice ring to it, but I don't think it's appropriate for a crafty business. Especially a business that hopes to sell to little old ladies at school craft fairs. I'm leaning towards using my name, as it's quite conventional now, easy to spell, and hopefully easy to remember. I want to pair it with a little blue jay perched on a branch for the logo. The trouble comes when I start looking for domain names. Sadly, sarahjay.com, .net, and .org were purchased in 2000 by a chef with the same name. And I refuse to use .biz. I need to add something to it, but I'm not sure what to use without sounding pretentious or locking myself into one particular medium. I could easily toss designs or creations to the end of my name, but there has to be something else. Any suggestions?Posted by criminal at 3:32 PM | Comments (3)
October 17, 2007
Ghost Town
I called in sick yesterday, but now that I'm back, the office is like a ghost town. I think everyone must be in meetings.
Posted by criminal at 11:04 AM | Comments (0)
October 15, 2007
Long and Winding Roads
I spent the weekend on the road visiting friends. For once, I was almost glad that I had to drive a long way to see them, because the weather was perfect for an autumn road trip. It was partly sunny but cool, requiring little more than a cracked window to stay comfortable. There really is something about fall in New England that just feels right. Everywhere I went, from central Massachusetts to the lakes region of New Hampshire, there was spectacular color. More than a few times I contemplated pulling over and whipping out my camera.
On Saturday morning I drove down to Em and Alex's house Worcester for book club. I really missed our discussions, having skipped out on the last few meetings. Amy, Carol, and I went to the scrapbooking store in Grafton to prep for next weekend's crop. And I spent the rest of the day at Amy's, working on some cards for the craft show and helping Ainsley with her "projects." She really liked my clear kitty stamps and insisted that the one standing on it's hind legs and stretching was making a touchdown sign. Obviously she's been watching a lot of Patriots football.
There was more crafty goodness on Sunday when I went up to New Hampton for my old roommate Jessica's Stampin' Up party. It was hard not to be the demonstrator, but I have to admit that it's nice to just be a customer sometimes. Which is why I'm letting my demonstrator status lapse. I spent a lot of time trying to stay up to date on products that I wasn't selling to anyone but myself and dreaming up workshop projects and stamp camps that I didn't have customers for. Maybe someday I'll give teaching another shot, but in the meantime, I think I'll just stick to making things.
Posted by criminal at 11:53 AM | Comments (0)
October 11, 2007
Craft Fair
Just a little advance notice for those people who like my cards and crafty things. I'm trying to get a table at the
Thornton's Ferry Holiday Craft Fair
on Saturday, November 17, from 9am to 3pm
in Merrimack, NH
The link has all the details, but it's a very kid-friendly craft fair with face-painting and a children's shopping room, all organized by the parents and teachers of the Thornton's Ferry School.
Posted by criminal at 5:13 PM | Comments (0)
Busy Work
In addition to trying my luck at a craft fair (see my last post), things are changing for me at work. As in, big changes. New responsibilities, new job title, new business cards, and even more new uncertainties. I've been involved in lot of quick meetings and projects that feel more like fire drills than the real thing. We've been talking about the changes for weeks now, but it still doesn't feel real. That could be because the whole thing remains little more than a ghost of a project until our groundwork is finished.
Posted by criminal at 4:45 PM | Comments (0)
October 9, 2007
Vertigo
I woke up this morning with moderate vertigo. At first I was a bit disoriented and stumbling over my own feet, unable to keep my balance. It has improved after sitting and standing upright most of the morning, but if I bend over or tip my head down, I am immediately dizzy. I can feel a headache blossoming too, but I have too many important meetings at work to take a sick day. I'm not sure how long I'll stay though now that my late meeting has been moved up.
Posted by criminal at 11:25 AM | Comments (0)
October 5, 2007
A Hole in One
Jon just called from his golf tournament to tell me that he hit a hole in one. Not only that, but that in doing so, he won a Harley.
Whoa.
The hole in one is achievement enough, but a bike too? That's so completely awesome that I don't have words to describe it. And Jon was so excited that at first I thought he might be crying. I would love to see the look on his face, but I'll have to wait until later tonight, after the Red Sox playoff game. For now, I'll just be happy for him.
Posted by criminal at 11:12 AM | Comments (0)
Five on Friday for October 5, 2007
- 1. What is your favorite color?
- Red
- 2. What colors do you like to decorate with?
- I've discovered that I gravitate toward warm colors, with the exception of white: I love using reds, but not wine or burgundy; warm greens, whether sea-hued or bright and leafy; chocolaty browns; and touches of black.
- 3. Is there a color that you absolutely hate?
- I've never been a fan of pink or lavender, except in flowers.
- 4. Which colors look best on you?
- Once again, the deep, warm colors I like to decorate with. Fall and winter are good shopping seasons for me, although this past summer had great deep colors too.
- 5. Which colors do you wear most often?
- I wear a lot of black, brown, and dark khaki because those are my basic bottoms. I have jeans too, but really only wear them on weekends and almost always with black or brown tops. I've been wearing more green, in part because there are more great green pieces available this year, but also because I realized that I had to stop buying most blues (except navy, peacock, and dark sea blues).
Posted by criminal at 10:14 AM | Comments (0)
October 4, 2007
Things Left Unfinished
I'm notorious for not finishing things, which is why this book meme is perfect for me:
These are the top 106 books most often marked as "unread" by LibraryThing's users (as of today). As usual, bold what you have read, italicize those you started but couldn't finish, and strike through what you couldn't stand. Add an asterisk (*) to those you've read more than once. Underline those on your to-read list.
Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell
Anna Karenina
Crime and Punishment
Catch-22
One Hundred Years of Solitude
Wuthering Heights*
The Silmarillion
Life of Pi: a novel
The Name of the Rose
Don Quixote (in its original language)
Moby Dick
Ulysses
The Odyssey*
Pride and Prejudice
Jane Eyre*
A Tale of Two Cities
The Brothers Karamazov
Guns, Germs, and Steel: the fates of human societies
War and Peace
Vanity Fair
The Time Traveler's Wife
The Iliad
Emma
The Blind Assassin
The Kite Runner
Mrs. Dalloway
Great Expectations
American Gods
Atlas Shrugged
Reading Lolita in Tehran: a memoir in books
Memoirs of a Geisha
Middlesex
Quicksilver
Wicked : the life and times of the wicked witch of the West
The Canterbury Tales
The Historian : a novel
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
Love in the Time of Cholera
Brave New World
The Fountainhead
Foucault's Pendulum
Middlemarch
Frankenstein
The Count of Monte Cristo
Dracula*
A Clockwork Orange
Anansi Boys
The Once and Future King
The Grapes of Wrath
The Poisonwood Bible : a novel
1984
Angels & Demons
Inferno
The Satanic Verses
Sense and Sensibility
The Picture of Dorian Gray
Mansfield Park
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest*
To the Lighthouse
Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Oliver Twist
Gulliver's Travels
Les Miserables
The Corrections
The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time
Dune
The Prince
The Sound and the Fury
Angela's Ashes : A Memoir
The God of Small Things
A People's History of the United States: 1492-present
Cryptonomicon
Neverwhere
A Confederacy of Dunces
A Short History of Nearly Everything
Dubliners
The Unbearable Lightness of Being
Beloved
Slaughterhouse-Five
The Scarlet Letter
Eats, Shoots & Leaves
The Mists of Avalon
Oryx and Crake: a novel
Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
Cloud Atlas
The Confusion
Lolita
Persuasion
Northanger Abbey
The Catcher in the Rye
On the Road
The Hunchback of Notre Dame
Freakonomics: a Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an Inquiry into Values
The Aeneid
Watership Down
Gravity's Rainbow
The Hobbit
White Teeth
Treasure Island
David Copperfield
The Three Musketeers
So, I haven't left as many books unfinished as I thought. Although I'm still plugging away at the Silmarillion three years later, I'm generally able to persevere through even the most tedious works of fiction. Many of the unfinished books were abandoned in high school during the frenzy leading up to the AP English exam. I've since finished several books I abandoned back then, and hope to catch most of the others at some point.
Posted by criminal at 4:47 PM | Comments (0)
October 2, 2007
A New Perspective
A new flat panel monitor landed on my desk today as part of our ongoing desktop refresh. It's a little bigger and running at a higher resolution, so it will take some getting used to. But I can see more windows at once, which doesn't mean much except that I'll be even more tempted to multi-task. Not that multi-tasking works for me, but this bigger workspace makes me want to try.
Posted by criminal at 3:39 PM | Comments (0)