Look what Sarah made me!  My very own nest.  Honestly, this is just perfect for me and my mood these days.  The snow outside looks like it’ll be sticking around for a while.  I know folks in New England think this is normal but this is just not what we do in DC.  It just isn’t.

Since we’ve been stuck inside so much for the last two weeks I went through an “I hate everything we own it all looks ugly and horrid phase” but managed to turn that into a semi-productive “let’s make it all new and fresh and pretty” phase.  Jon abides.

Part of this apartment refreshing has been revisiting our kitchen table and finally investing in a cake stand.  I’m not using it for cake, however, but as a kind of display case.  Almost like a bell jar in a 19th century cabinet of curiosities but a bit more kitchen table friendly.  I do much of my crafting at this table so keeping it inviting and inspiring will help me out… I hope.  I’m planning to keep a revolving set of things I like in there to keep me inspired while we count down the days until spring.

Of course, what you don’t see in this image is the stack of mail, my pile of junk work I bring home each night, the dirty dish, etc. etc.  Please don’t go thinking I live in a perfectly tablescaped world.  No no.

I am in love with these spoof merit badges.  I’ve been looking around for merit badges lately, and I’m not really sure how I got onto this trend.  Well, “trend” in my life– obviously, not a trend in other people’s lives.  They’re cheap too.  Most of the badges from Boy Scout Store are $1.50-3.00/each! Oh yes, oh yes indeed.  These will make excellent enclosures in cards, presents, and as encouragement gifts.  I’m a fan of giving small gifts, by the way.

There are several other sources for adult/non-scouting merit badges.  Including:

• Lee Meszaros‘ “Be Proud” series (I adore the “pushing the envelope” badge);
• PodPost has several sets for the letter writers, letterpress printers, and bookbinders among us;
• NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) sells badges that could work for office life too;
• Nerd Merit Badges: I think the name says it all– for the techy in your life;
• Meritorious Baby’s set for infants and toddlers; and,
• Mama merit badges which, I’m *almost* sad to say, some of my friends will soon qualify for.

Actually, after drawing up that list I’m thinking maybe merit badges are a trend.  I just haven’t seen any adulty merit badges but that might say more about my friends or our relative hipness than it would about the trend.

I want to show you our bed.  It’s the cheapest Ikea bed that will hold a queen mattress, doesn’t have a foot-board (poor Jon is too tall and his feet stick off the ends of all beds), and doesn’t require a box spring.  The Dalselv hasn’t been the worst– when I first got it I painted it bumble bee yellow and that was nice.  Plus, we were able to string lights through the headboard and that was fine too.  Lately, though, it’s been looking so tired (no pun intended).  So… graduate school.  Although my means haven’t improved terribly since grad school, I feel a bit more adult and am tired of this bed.  A wholly new bed is out of the question at the moment– expense, sense we may move, laziness.

Yesterday I did some brainstorming, non-ironically asking “What Would Martha Do?”  I considered re-painting (too much sanding) and trying to hack off the top bit (too much sawing, do we even have a saw?).  Then, it hit me, a slip cover!  So, for less than $40 and in about an hour I redid our bed and, frankly, it kind of makes the whole room feel new.

This project was so easy, I almost feel like it’s cheating to blog about it… I purchased a cotton shower curtain since it’s the perfect width and came pre-embroidered (and the pattern just sung to me).  Then, I came home, ironed it, pinned it into place with pins, then just did a simple basting stitch to hold it in place.  Ta da!

At first I thought about breaking out the sewing machine and doing some serious tailoring.  However, after pinning it I realized that since I wanted it to taper a bit toward the bottom I wouldn’t be able to get it on and off easily.  I want to be able to wash it and I don’t want to mess with putting in a zipper or button holes.  So– quick basting stitches.  It feels pretty sturdy, took me less than half an hour, looks nice (if I do say so myself), and should be easy to get off when it’s time to launder.

I still want a new bed– one that doesn’t creek every time someone rolls over– yes.  But for now, this will do.  It does feel fresh.

First, how do you like the site’s re-design?  I’m diggin’ the new banner but worried that the blue-brown is a) cliche and b) a bit dark.  It’s still winter, after all, and something about this brown just doesn’t feel quite as happy as I’d hoped it might.

After several days without mail delivery (the horror!) due to DC’s epic snowstorm I got quite a full mailbox on Friday.  Most happily, the newest issue of Uppercase Magazine arrived all the way from Alberta, Canada.  For some reason issue 3 just didn’t really work for me– I’ve no idea why.  This issue, however, I tore through in about… oh, 4 hours: my mind spinning with a hundred ideas too.  So nice to get a burst of color in what has been (and will probably continue to be a dreary Feb).

I hope you’ll go out and find a copy (or order one from their website) so I’m not going to share all the amazing things it contains here but I’ll tell you about these gems:

• There is a mailbox gallery (seriously, it’s called Mailbox 141) in Australia and Girl Printer displayed prints of envelope security patterns there.  Love!
• Three Potato Four is an online shop and blog I wish someone had told me about A LONG time ago.
• An Abecedary [sic] of writing!
• Oodles more too.

Just as I finished the magazine: SUN!  Late afternoons of full sunlight and snow– they are what remind me why this is my nook.

A few random things:

• I cannot stop listening to Hem’s Rabbit Songs.
• Is it weird that I want a new table cloth bc I take 75% of the photos for this blog in my nook at my table and the orange oil cloth is just not working as a background?  Considering something in a muted teal…
• Trying to figure out how to break through my fear of “ruining” nice notebooks.  I need to figure out a way to keep an ongoing book of “things that catch my eye.”
• Thinking about a Halloween costume that could involve a rubber stamp bandoleer.  Maybe “Super Mail Girl?” or “Revolutionary Postal Carrier?”
• The American Odyssey Relay is about to soak up a lot of my time: running, logistics, cheering.
• I’ve updated the “Keeping Me Inspired” section on the right– it was time.

“Mail Cart” in Computationally.Intractable’s Flickr stream.
Licensed via the Creative Commons.

These lines came from a poem quoted in The Royal Mail: Its Curiosities and Romance and attributed to James Beaton c. 1840.

Something I want to write upon, to scare away each vapour—
The ” Penny Postage” shall I try ? Why, yes, I’ll write on paper.
Thy great invention, Rowland Hill, each person loudly hails ;
The females they are full of it, and so are all the mails.
This may be called the “Penny Age,” and those who are not mulish,
Are daily growing “penny wise,” though not, I hope, pound foolish.
We’ve penny blacking, penny plays, penny mags, for information,
And now a “Penny Post,” which proves we’ve lots of penetration.
Their love-sick thoughts by this new act may Lucy, Jane, or Mary,
Array in airy-diction from Johnson’s dictionary.
Each maid will for the postman watch the keyhole like a cat,
And spring towards the door whene’er there comes a big rat-tat.
And lots of paper will be used by every scribbling elf,
That each should be a paper manufacturer himself.
To serve all with ink enough they must have different plans ;
They must start an “Ink walk ” just like milk, and serve it round in cans.
The letters in St Valentine so vastly will amount,
Postmen may judge them by the lot, they won’t have time to count;
They must bring round spades and measures, to poor love-sick souls
Deliver them by bushels, the same as they do coals.
As billet-doux will so augment, the mails will be too small,
So omnibuses they must use, or they can’t carry all;
And ladies pleasure will evince, instead of any fuss,
To have their lovers’ letters all delivered with a ‘bus!
Mail-coachmen are improving much in knowledge of the head,
For like the letter which they take, they’re themselves all over red.
Postmen are “men of letters” too ; each one’s a learned talker,
And ’cause he reads the diction’ry, the people call him ” Walker.”
Handwriting now of every sort the connoisseur may meet;
Though a running hand, I think, does most give postmen running feet.
They who can’t write will make their mark when they a line are dropping,
And where orthography is lame, of course it will ” come hopping.”
Invention is progressing so, and soon it will be seen,
That conveyance will be quicker done than it has ever been;
A plan’s in agitation—as nought can genius fetter-
To let us have the answer back, before they get the letter.

James Beaton quoted in James Wilson Hyde, The Royal Mail: Its Curiosities and Romance.  London: Simpkin, 1889.  Available online via Google Books.

Ever since I made Liz stationery last week I can’t stop thinking about monograms.  I’ve seriously been staying away thinking about how my friends’ initials might tangle up nicely and what colors they’d like.  Everyone is getting monogrammed notes for their birthdays this year…  There are a lot of rules for monogramming but I quite like the two or three letter monogram with the surname in the largest typeface but not always in the center.

I’m playing around with making some of my own stationary stationery (thanks to Donovan of Letter Writers’ Alliance for pointing out my typo!  So embarrassing.  I love stationEry and am rarely stationary).  Sadly, I’ve got to use MSWord for design (I know, I know)– it is still snowing in DC and I haven’t had a chance to get to a computer with InDesign.  I like where it’s going, however.  The image above is just a screenshot (please ignore the curser and the gray box– my contact info is there in small, gray font.  I just didn’t want to put it up online).  It took me a while to get here but  think this is close.

I like this dark red, dark blue, and burnt orange/brown color scheme but it doesn’t really seem quite right.  I tried a bit with purple and dark teal but it felt too girly for me.

I really need to spend some time dealing with the camera settings– for some reason the colors lately have been way, way off.  These aren’t really as… saturated? as they look in these photos.

My Valentines this year are a bit… avant garde?  I actually can’t really tell if I like them all that much.  On one hand, I feel like it’s so nice to get away from the usual flowers, red, white, sappy thing.  At the same time, maybe this doesn’t really scream “Valentine” or “love.”  I mean, I love the mail so anything mail themed works for me, but… I’m unsure.

In fact, this was actually an idea I’ve had rolling around in my head for a while– Valentine’s Day gave me an excuse.

Also, Sarah, apologies for blowing the surprise.  Um… this one is yours.  I figured you wouldn’t mind, it’ll still be fun when you get it.

Anyway, to go through the mail these are in cellophane sleeves (in the photos they’re already sealed up, perhaps that isn’t 100% obvious in the photos above).  I’m going to just put the stamp on that sleeve and send it in its merry way.  I’ve had good luck in the past mailing things in these bags.

“(89/365) One day this will be extinct” in Sarah G.’s Flickr Stream.
Licensed via the Creative Commons.

I came across this passage in Posting It and just had to share it with you all:

[Anthony Trollope's character, Jemima Stanbury], placed little confidence in [pillar post boxes]: ‘She had not the faintest belief that any letter put into one of them would ever reach its destination.  She could not understand why people should not walk with their letters to a  respectable post-office instead of chucking them into an iron stump– as she called it– out in the middle of the street with nobody to look after it.  Postive orders had been given that no letters from her house should ever be put into the iron post’ (p. 117).

I don’t know why but this passage just tickles me.  Oh, also, Lewis Carrol wrote a letter writing manual: Eight or Nine Wise Words on Letter Writing.  This is a thing which I must get my hands on post haste.

After we got over the sting of not making it to NOLA for the Super Bowl, the blizzard was something else.  We’re lucky, our apartment building didn’t loose power or heat.  However, there are 25 inches of snow on the ground.  TWENTY FIVE INCHES!  That’s more snow than I’ve ever seen in my life.  Ever.

So glad we don’t live on this side of the building any more…

Our Sneaux Man felt right at home, kept telling us it was just like Miami’s white sand beaches.  We still felt the Who Dat pride, even if we are 1000 miles away from NOLA.

Hope that wherever you are you’re safe, warm, and peaceful this week.

Jon and I are going to New Orleans for the Super Bowl this weekend Well, never mind.  Apparently the worst snow storm ever is coming to DC and ALL the flights to anywhere have been canceled for the entire weekend.  We’ll be watching the game in our apt.  Thankfully, we stocked up on snacks before Snowzilla arrived. (yes, we know it’s in Miami.  We figure the party with his family in NOLA will be way better than whatever is happening in Miami (or DC)).  So, a unique “poem” this Friday– the pep talk from Any Given Sunday.  And… GEAUX SAINTS!

Al Pacino’s Inch by Inch Speech
from Any Given Sunday

I don’t know what to say really.
Three minutes
to the biggest battle of our professional lives
all comes down to today.
Either
we heal
as a team
or we are going to crumble.
Inch by inch
play by play
till we’re finished.
We are in hell right now, gentlemen
believe me
and
we can stay here
and get the shit kicked out of us
or
we can fight our way
back into the light.
We can climb out of hell.
One inch, at a time. [Read more →]