:: What I Did Instead of Working ::

my sister's wedding is in just a few days (!!!) and so i took some time today when i should have been working on filling orders to design a wedding card to go with their gift (which i'll show you later this week).

i can't decide which of the three versions i like best. thoughts?

:: Better Then ::

my students, when i taught college english in ohio, struggled with then and than. i was told it was a midwest thing -- a colloquial quirk of language in which "then" is used to mean either then or than. i'm not 100% sure i believe it except for how common it was to come across blank stares when i tried to make the correction.

but here my headline is correct. not better THAN but better THEN. i was feeling a bit better. then i wasn't. yesterday was hard, this morning even harder. i find myself leaning on my family and my husband's family, which really helps, but i'm still struggling to find a source of strength within me.

i know from experience that it will come, but it's hard waiting it out.

i do keep hoping that something creative will come of all this. i'm super inspired by this shop right now. i wish i could afford to buy the whale print above for my husband, because it's true. without him i'd be lost right now. and in fact when i'm not with him i often feel lost. when he gets home at night and asks how i'm feeling i almost always just say, "better now."

it's nice to have that.

:: I Can't Stop Making Things ::

my postpartum depression after evan was born is how this whole up up creative business started: i couldn't stop making things. and now here we are again. it's like some kind of primal urge. feel bad, busy your hands?

i don't claim to understand it.



the good news is that evan and the baby are really going to benefit. this week i made a tie for evan and i'm finishing knitting the baby the cutest knitted pants ever made.

(these are just previews; i'll post a better pic of the pants when they're finished and i'll post a picture of evan wearing his tie at my sister's wedding next weekend, where he will be the most handsome kid and probably the only one wearing an honest-to-god tie and not some clip on piecce of ugliness. but then i'm biased.)

:: Cute Custom Stationery ::

i made these recently for a client. i wanted to do something a little modern, a little cute since these are meant to be thank you notes for an adoption.

in the end i loved the color palette so much i decided to use it for a new project: number and letter wall art. i hope to have them listed soon, although i need to figure out how i want to photograph them first.

:: word.play september ::

oh dear. i forgot to do my own project. i guess you could say it's because my brain's currently awash in hormones and neurotransmitters, eh? anyway, i hope you remembered to participate, and i hope you'll drop me a link in the comments.

:: she said ::

{ from me to you. you can download the original pdf, which is 8.5" by 8.5", here. }

it's happening. i'm going back on my zoloft. i didn't want to, but i had promised myself when i went off it that if i needed to go back on i would. and when i started feeling crappy i gave myself a month to see if i could pull out of it.

my deadline was september 15th. i worked really hard, used my feelgood list and got more exercise and tried to cultivate an attitude of excitement and wonder.

but here i am.

my doc's advice was this: sometimes, it doesn't matter how hard you try. sometimes, it's organic. sometimes, it's inside. sometimes, you just need help.

so here we go.

:: are babies getting smaller? ::

wow. something about folding new (to us) baby clothes makes this feel very real and very exciting. i have to say: i'm finding myself surprisingly drawn to little girl details like the gathered pocket on the center outfit above.

and by the way: newborn onesies? were they always that tiny or have they gotten tinier since evan was a baby? they don't look big enough to fit on a pound puppy, let alone a baby.

:: i'm a winner, dontcha know? ::

i'm twenty-six weeks pregnant today, and man oh man am i all over the emotional map these days. i wasn't like this when i was pregnant with evan and because of the postpartum depression with him i'm of course going off on all these mental tangents that end with me in a heap on the floor or me in a hospital on a 3-day psych hold. there are days when i think, "i am not going to be able to handle this. i am going to die from this. i am going to become one of those moms who has to stick her kids in front of the TV all day because she can't handle anything else." there are days when i'll be sitting with evan and we're doing our daily life kinds of stuff and i'll just burst into tears because it seems so hard.

but then other times i'm completely fine and washing dishes is bringing me some kind of weird joy and peace and i'm all la la maybe let's have four kids or maybe five.

like i said: all over the map.

so yesterday was a day when i was all those things in one day. i cried in the morning, was fine most of the day, spent the early afternoon in a mild panic for no apparent reason, and was ornery at dinner time.

and then at 9 or so i found out i'd won this print (pictured above) from laura george and i wanted to dance a jig. at the time, it felt like a cosmic hand reaching down to say hey, julie, even if you feel like a total mental case you're doing everything right. it felt like reassurance.

plus i really, really like free things, particularly when they're lovely and handmade and something i would have bought anyway.

i'm thinking that when i've got a little extra cash coming in, maybe when y'all do your holiday shopping at up up, the shop, i might go back for one of these:

don't i kind of sort of need that?

:: super simple peach crisp ::

crisps are, in my mind, the world's easiest things to bake from scratch. the ingredients needn't be precise and you can experiment with fruit combinations and other additions.

the first night we cooked in our new house i made this one from peaches brian's aunt had left during the move and some blueberries from our new neighbors.

here's the recipe, more or less:

- fruit: washed, peeled, and sliced if applicable (most recipe'll tell you to use 5-6 cups of your desired fruit. i seldom have quite so much fruit on hand so i just use a small square pan (8x8) and fill it as much as possible. it really doesn't matter too much.) i used four peaches and a small handful of bluebs.
- 1tbsp brown sugar
- 1tbsp flour
- 1 tbsp lemon juice (if you have it... i didn't have it the other night when i made this one so i left it out)

- 1/2 cup flour
- 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
- 1/2 cup rolled oats
- up to a tsp cinnamon if desired
- about 4 tbsp chilled butter, chopped into small pieces

TO MAKE IT:
- mix together the first 4 ingredients and put in the pan (i usually grease the pan just in case)
- mix together everything else, using a pastry cutter or two knives to cut in the butter
- sprinkle over the fruit mixture in the pan. this is where you need to use your judgment. if you didn't have a lot of fruit, you probably don't want to overdo it on the crumb topping, so go easy here.

- bake at 375 degrees for 30 minutes or until bubbly.

ENJOY!

(be on the lookout for apple crisps in my near future. it's so nice to be back in new york in autumn!)

:: sunday shiver ::

remember those days when you'd swim way past blue lips and well into full-body shuddering? it was one of those days around here yesterday.

evan's sunday reads like an entire week's worth of summer camp activities: canoeing, bike riding, baseball, boat rides, swimming, and staying up past bedtime.

i hope you had a nice weekend, too. and if you're here in the states, i hope you have a great labor day. ours is going to be spent settling the house a bit more and then celebrating birthdays with family.

:: Simple Swoop Desktop Wallpaper ::

Designed some new computer desktop wallpaper. You can find it here. Click on "All Sizes" and choose the original size to download it for your own desktop.