:: :: so good :: ::

i went searching the wild wild web for the perfect word to describe what happened yesterday, and despite a veritable plethora of vocabulary fantasticness (prodigious? portentous? staggering? stupendous? sublime? miraculous?) i still just think the best word is good.

good good good. honest to god good. good like in the yoplait commercials where the two girls talk about good.

my friend, my good good friend, sent me my lost blog posts. everything since december 2007. she had them in her google reader. and she copied them into a word file. and she sent them to me. and i gushed on and on about how awesome she is.

because i have all that stuff from last summer back. BACK! i am slowly copying it into blogger with the original dates. it'll be awhile but it'll be up here sometime in the nearish future.

sound good?

:: :: feelgood :: ::

so... this is something i've been working on for awhile and i'm so excited that it's finally ready for public consumption.

it's a customizable feelgood list.

deep in the throes of postpartum depression, when it felt like I would never get better ever again, i made myself a list. therapy was okay; my journal helped; brian was great. but I needed to go at that thing with every possible weapon in the feel-good arsenal.

i read all the literature on depression; i researched neurochemistry as best i could. And then I sat down and listed every single thing i could think of that might help me feel better. things my doctors had told me (like do some vigorous exercise three times a week); things i knew about myself (like read a book). i wrote them all down.

and then i started checking them off.

i never once got the whole thing checked off in a week, but working at it and seeing how much effort i was putting into my recovery made it start to feel like, well, recovery.

now that i’m better i see that it’s not really a recovery list so much as a life list. it’s like my own best advice to myself. my own little reminder to be kind to myself, to make myself a priority, and to take time to stay healthy so that i don’t slide back down the dreaded, dreaded hill.

so now i'm offering them up for sale in my shop. i figure, the shop is a direct result of my depression. plus, i know there are so many other folks out in the world who need a little feelgood in their days.

the deal is this: you buy, i email you a form to fill out and send back to me, i make your list, you get the final pdf file to print as many times as you’d like. forever.

the thing is, i need your help to get the word out about this. there's nothing else like it on etsy and i don't think that the people who need it most will just happen to stumble upon it because they probably won't know they're looking for it. so tell your friends, eh? write about it on your blog?

stop by the shop and check it out?

:: :: beauty :: ::

Sparkles!, originally uploaded by brianjulieandbaby.

earlier this month, i wrote about the snow: "ever since we've been home the world has been coated in white snow so sparkly it looks like pure magic. it's something i keep wishing i could capture in a photo or an illustration, but i never seem to be able to grasp that special whatever it is. the way each tiny snow crystal reflects the light like glass. it's gorgeous."

this picture, taken out evan's bedroom window, still doesn't do it justice, but it makes me happy nonetheless.

:: :: just for me, just because :: ::

it'll be awhile before my shop turns a profit. so many costs even when you're mostly selling digital files! but to celebrate hitting the 150 sale mark, i've decided to buy myself a small present. i originally set my budget at $20 but then i found a couple of things in the $25-28 range that i had to include among my top contenders (as seen above).

shop links (left to right from top): smallbird, seasprayblue, artgoodies, maupoo, jaturon, labokoff, jenskelley, shoofly, thebline

i just realized, of course, that in showing you these, i risk not being able to buy them because you beat me to it. but at least that'd be more etsy sales and it would help me narrow down my choices. so go hog wild, y'all!

:: :: suspended animation :: ::

did i tell you that i am about to forge ahead into the fancy world of online advertising? my shop is doing well but i'm ready to take it to the next level.

mama wants a new house. no, really.

anyway, this is what i've got so far:


i just keep watching it over and over trying to decide if i like it. and i can't tell. at my core i'm slightly against animated advertisements for the web. they seem tacky and annoying. but i can't deny that on the blogs i read, i tend to notice the animated ads and often not the others.

damn.

so anyway, my question to you is this: whaddaya think? is it annoying? would you click on it? do you think it's an accurate (if limited) portrayal of my shop? thoughts?

:: :: bacon bits :: ::

me: "i'm going to go downstairs and work. gotta bring home the bacon."
brian: "you mean the bits?"

it's true. and hilarious. thought you might appreciate it, too.

:: :: special delivery from etsy :: ::

this is so cool. this year, etsy is teaming up with citymeals-on-wheels to provide a little love to elderly new yorkers on valentine's day. most fun, they are providing cards to each meal recipient. that means there'll be a whole lot of folks on valentine's day this year who will get a special love note who might not otherwise have gotten any.

the best part is that we (yes, you and me) get to provide the valentines cards. citymeals-on-wheels serves over 18,000 people, so they need as many cards as they can get. so etsy has asked all of its members (buyers and sellers alike) to spread the word and to share one or more cards. you can make your own card(s) or buy something on etsy (i know a few cute valentines for sale over there, wink, wink), add a special message to each card (something appropriate for your grandma, let's say (so my "crazy love" cards probably aren't the best choice!)), and then send them to the etsy folks so that they are received by february 2.

etsy's going to have a special page to highlight all those who participate (find out more here) and there's also a flickr group set up so you can show off your wares.

i'm sending mine this weekend. won't you join me?

:: :: silly time waster :: ::

if you need a good chuckle and some surprisingly insightful and sharp cultural commentary, you've got to go check out this link to the playmobil airport security check point toy. read the reviews.

go do it now.

:: :: bracaba :: ::

Going Home To Rochester, originally uploaded by brianjulieandbaby.

like many kids his age, i imagine, evan has certain words that mean different things in different contexts. "mimi" means mitten if we're getting dressed to go outside; it means music if we're near the radio. "muh muh" means both march and marshmallow.

until today, bracaba had just one meaning: broccoli bites. but now, it has taken on a new meaning for him. ask him, "who is the new president of the united states?" and he'll tell you: bracaba.

it sounds equally right in either context.

(p.s. this image is actually from the day we drove home, but i thought it seemed appropriate for today, too. what a day! woohoo!)

:: :: and oh yeah :: ::

i forgot: there are two new designs in the shop today (including the one above -- a printable hello stationery set). i know i must say this every time i make something new but... these are my favorites. : )

:: :: i know, i know :: ::

i know i shouldn't be, but i'm feeling discouraged about my shop today. sales were steadily increasing daily and then suddenly stopped. i haven't had a sale in days. it's like i've been blacklisted. someone is out there spreading malicious lies about me: her downloadable stationery can give you salmonella; it'll cause rickets; it put that hole in the ozone layer; it peeled the paint off my car.

i'm here to state, for the record, that only one of those things is true. which one? i'll never tell.

:: :: live and learn :: ::

ugh. i took a bath on postage yesterday. i had accidentally listed shipping "to everywhere" instead of only to the united states and canada, so i had to ship some cards to the united kingdom at three times what i charged for shipping.

plus... the one guy at the post office rings my packages up as non-machinable letters (79 cents) but the guy yesterday said he's doing it wrong because they're supposed to be considered parcels ($1.51).

so there went any possible profit on the 9 things i sent yesterday. boo. i had to increase my shipping prices on single cards yesterday. i hate to do it but i can't give the things away for free!

:: :: climber :: ::

the difficult thing about being a parent is this: striking a balance between encouraging and discouraging certain behaviors.

brian and i got this picture today from grammy -- evan had a sleepover there last night and was discovered in this somewhat compromising position -- and i was just so glad that i wasn't the one who caught him because i think every strand of my being would have been so proud and i'm not sure i could have hidden my pride well enough to put on my stern-mommy face and say, "evan, we do not sit in sinks."

how cool that my kiddo climbed into a sink today. this is big! he is big! i'm such a proud mama.

:: :: my city is courting me heavily :: ::

I'm Gritting My Teeth Saying, "He's Heavy...", originally uploaded by brianjulieandbaby.

i know it will sound crazy to anyone who didn't grow up in the snow belt, and maybe to anyone who has fled permanently, but one of the things i miss the most every time i leave rochester is the snow.

oh, the snow.

and now that we're back, my city is doing its best to make sure i never leave. ever since we've been home the world has been coated in white snow so sparkly it looks like pure magic.

it's something i keep wishing i could capture in a photo or an illustration, but i never seem to be able to grasp that special whatever it is. the way each tiny snow crystal reflects the light like glass. it's gorgeous.

:: :: oh dear, oh dear :: ::

where, oh where has my little blog gone? oh where, or where can it be?

i can't even begin to explain how sad i am that my blog is gone. i've been running that blog since 2006. it has documented my pregnancy, the birth of my first child, my postpartum depression, my decision to stop working on my dissertation in english, our efforts to move home to new york, my work at building a shop.

i think i still have the post data somewhere on my server, which is the partially good news. i'm just not sure it's retrievable in any reasonable way.

one of my favorite writers, maxine hong kingston, once lost an entire manuscript -- i think it was 500 pages -- in a fire; she had to sit down to entirely rewrite the manuscript from memory. i always admired that so much, and thought how hard it would be to continue on with the same story. i think i would have just started fresh with something new.

now here i am wondering how on earth i could ever possibly recreate my own past. i just couldn't. how could i recapture what i was feeling those first days after evan's birth? or during those days of anxiety when i was gripped tightly in the fists of my depression?

anyone who doesn't think a blog is an important document -- who thinks that it is just some kind of random daily rambling, which it may well be -- is so wrong. i can't believe there were moments when i considered just deleting my blog forever because not enough people were reading it. as if a blog is about its readers and not about the amazing way it frames and reframes your life every single time you post. the way it documents not just events and feelings but frames of mind, perspectives...

if you don't have a blog perhaps you will consider starting one today in honor of my gone blog. and leave me a comment with a link if you do.

:: love love lovely ::

this one was a christmas gift for my twin nieces (they're almost four), but you can be pretty darned sure i'll be making one for my little emily as soon as she's got enough hair to hold clips. the cuteness-to-effort-required ratio on this little project is just about perfect, which is to say it was so freaking easy to make and is even cuter than it was easy.

love. love. love. the end.

(oh, and if you want to make one, the tutorial is here. enjoy.)