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August 31, 2007

B R I T T A

Found this cool spell with Flickr site [via Nested]. I think I'm going to have it printed out for Britta's room. More cheap "art", yay.

Posted by jana at 5:40 PM

Happy anniversary!!

It's hard to keep your feet on the ground when you know you were born to fly. -Sara Evans

This labor day weekend marks our 12th wedding anniversary. The quote above reminds me of the man I married. Sometimes I feel as if I am Andy's rocket fuel, other times I am the weight around his ankles keeping him on this earth. But together I think we balance each other out. He lifts me off the ground of an ordinary life and I am here to help him keep us in flight.

We're thinking of going to Bumbershoot and perhaps taking a boat ride to celebrate our anniversary. Whatever we do, I have no doubt Andy will make it fun -- which is why I'm so glad I married him.

Happy anniversary Andy! I'd marry you again tomorrow. I love you.

Posted by jana at 1:43 PM | Comments (3)

August 30, 2007

First photo with new camera

Sigh. I'm making biscotti and it is not looking right. Bleh. I should know better by now not to talk on the phone and bake...or sew.

Anyway, the camera arrived yesterday. I charged up the battery just in time for wine, campfire and seeing an old friend. Here's to capturing memories of one of my favorite evenings of the little summer we've had.

This camera is way better than our old one, so I'm thankful the last one went kaput.

Posted by jana at 10:21 PM | Comments (2)

August 28, 2007

blog inspiration

I know I said I was too tired to blog but that was before I read all of my email. Greg (see previous post on my BSF) is our next house guest scheduled to arrive from Scotland in just 9 days. Here is the list of things he's interested in seeing during his Seattle stay:

Nice things I'd like to do (in no particular order):

- Splodging.*
- Visiting cool and interesting Seattle places/events deemed so by cool and interesting by Seattlites.
- Doing domesticky stuff. What's it like living in America? This obviously means visiting Walmart, firing doughnuts, and eating guns from drivethrus. Or was it the other way round? ;-)
- Going on a tour of the Boeing factory (was recommended). Hey, you get to visit the largest building in the world by volume - what's not to like?
- Being cultured.
- Potential doing high-powered physical activities (if I get the correct travel insurance..)

Basically, I'm easily pleased and will try anything at least once. It'll be fun.

Since I am a Seattle native I am finding it difficult to parse out what anyone would really find interesting here, especially foreigners. Richard and Farida left this morning. I felt I owed them a trip to Walmart but sadly we did not make it. Richard did get to see guns in a sporting goods store though so he was quite pleased with that sighting. Farida got to experience first-rate customer service while shopping at Nordstrom. Everything is pretty much self-serve in Holland.

I had not considered ever taking anyone to seeing Boeing. Alex, can you get us in? I think Karsten may like a Boeing tour too. Heck, I've never been on a Boeing tour. The thought never occured to me.

I love having foreigners visit for the cultural exchange. Richard and Farida live in the most liberal city in the world. They told us about the clown who has a clown photo for his id card, the mob boss who was gunned down in Amsterdam and the Prime Minister who presented himself as Harry Potter.

...and because I can really no longer type I'm off to bed with this warning:

Readers be warned, if you email me it may just end up on my blog!

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*Splodging refers to "hanging out" but I'm not sure if that is just a Scottish saying or British as well.

Posted by jana at 9:52 PM | Comments (5)

I get the hint

From my cousin:

Congrats on buying a new camera. I'm expecting a new blog topic soon!
love, janet

Don't worry, this blog will be rightfully returned to Mom/Family/Kid topics just as soon as I get enough sleep to type coherently!

Posted by jana at 9:20 PM

done!

Camera has been purchased. Michael threw me off the fuji track with his comment on the new Canons. After even more searching I found this Canon Powershot SD800 with zoom, image stabilization, wide-angle lens and small size. I probably would have continued my feet dragging search endlessly but I realized next week is the first day of school and I can't let that pass by without photos. Hurray for deadlines.

Posted by jana at 1:09 PM

August 23, 2007

My camera buying techniques

Step 1. Ask the User Experience Design Team at work which cameras they recommend.

Step 2. Look up each camera on Amazon. Browse to the "Your Amazon" area, click on "Your Browsing History" in the subnavigation, click the compare button for each camera I want to compare the product info on.

Step 3. Surf over to Flickr. Locate the "Camera Finder" feature. View photo samples from cameras I'm interested in. What helps the most is looking at photos taken by the average user. Compare stats on how many photos are taken with each camera by how many people so I can be assured this is a camera that will be easy to pack with me.

Unfortunately the Canon 20D didn't make the Entrepreneur's Wife budget at this time. I'll keep dreaming. My reality camera surprisingly turned out to be a Fuji.

Big kudos to Flickr for camera buying help.

Posted by jana at 10:23 PM | Comments (2)

First Glimpse of America

We just returned from dinner of mexican food (a rarity in Holland) with Richard and Farida, our Dutch friends. They were shocked at the large portions of food served and didn't take a liking to the margaritas at all. They've been wandering the streets of Seattle for the last few days. "Not all Americans are fat!" is what they said as if shocked. I'm enjoying hearing outsider views of our country.

Posted by jana at 10:09 PM | Comments (1)

August 20, 2007

Dutch friends are about to hop their flight

Richard is bringing me 6 Amsterdam Weeklies, The Times (an expat paper) and he's restocking Andy's licorice supply. We'll be getting a mini-Dutch fix. Looking forward to showing our friends our neck of the country. I hope they have been adequately warned by me regarding the sad state of public transportation. They said they want to see some skyscrapers.

Posted by jana at 10:47 PM

August 19, 2007

CD versus digital download

1 reason to buy a physical CD: Maktub is releasing a new CD shrink wrapped in edible/smokable recycled chipboard. Now that's something you won't get with the digital version. I'm looking forward to hearing Maktub's new album and hopefully catching a live show.

More at Maktub.com

Posted by jana at 10:08 PM

August 17, 2007

Caption this

I bought a white t-shirt for Karsten that seems too plain for such an animated guy.

Idea:print this photo of Andy windsurfing out on the photo fabric then sew it on to the boring T.

Here are some ideas for captions Andy and I have brainstormed:

1. Quote bubble with "Hi Karsten!"

2. My dad can fly higher than your dad. (Andy rejected this one)

3. My dad can fly

4. My dad gets high (I rejected this one)

5. Air Dad (figured kids not from the 80s wouldn't get this one)

Any more ideas?

Posted by jana at 3:50 PM | Comments (3)

Nada

The scene: sitting around a cafeteria table with all male software developer co-workers. I'm trying not to type geeks, but it is implied (and I mean this as a compliment).

Me: My camera broke, my cell phone broke, I don't own an MP3 player, and I'm not locked into a cell phone contract.

Co-wokers: (blank stares)

Me: Don't you see this as a sign?

Co-workers: (blank stares)

Me: This of course is a sign I need an iphone!

At this point I think they will jumping up and down geeking out that I'm even thinking such thoughts.

Co-workers: If it breaks you've lost everything. And an iphone can hardly count as a camera.

Sigh. I'm going through camera withdrawl. The LCD panel on my phone went out. Someone point me to Walden Pond

Posted by jana at 9:28 AM | Comments (1)

August 16, 2007

Pillows + props

I added a photo of the pillow I made to the Sew Mama Sew Flickr Photo Pool and Sew Mama Sew blogged about it on their blog. I am honored to be included among people who probably know what they're doing when they start sewing and probably don't have to call their mom for help every time they fire up their sewing machine.

Also a very talented friend of mine, Michelle Maclise just started a blog focusing on design and kids, two of my very favorite subjects. Here's the email from Michelle:

So, being that I spend my career hooked up to the internet, how could I possibly avoid writing a blog? I’ve put it off long enough due to a lack of time and, frankly, a worthwhile topic. I’ve been attempting to illustrate on the side in hopes that I’ll start creating my own textiles but, who am I kidding? I’ve got approx. 5 hours a week when I’m not consumed by work, playing with Sabine & Clara and keeping the family and house afloat. So, until I have time to do all the things I dream of, a blog appears to be the perfect segue to discuss all things that make me excited: Kids + Design.

I’ve only started, so there’s not a lot to read. What I’d love from you are topics and ideas that I could possibly feature in the future…

Kid centric design: Their rooms, organization, furniture, toys, art, music…you name it… Focusing on all elements that make an inspiring surrounding for a child.

so, be kind…I’ve only just begun. I will be making my blog more robust over time – it’s rather bare-boned right now.
Hopefully I’ll have the time to keep it up!

http://roomtogrow.wordpress.com/

I'm already scared at how much money I'll want to drop every time I read one of her posts.

Posted by jana at 9:41 PM

August 8, 2007

Co-workers, be warned

Because my job requires me to do some futzing around with code I try and avoid it in my spare time. Spare time is reserved for things that don't drive me batty and take years off of my life. So of course my blog has looked like doo doo since I first started it years ago. I figured we're all friends here and this would be the same as not inviting my dear friends over to my messy house. If I cared too much I'd never invite anyone over. If I cared too much about what this blog looked like I'd never blog.

Then I ran across this font and thought: this is me! A font that I can identify with: a rough sketch, in-progress, and thinking about fun. I made a little gif and thought I'd easily upload it and that would be that.

It probably would have been that easy had I not been trying to attempt this while the kids were fighting over newly purchased Scooby Doo yogurt. I didn't save a back-up file of the code I was working on. I know. I really do know. Bad me.

It turns out the code wasn't CSS, html or javascript so when I deleted something that looked all funny I knew it would be bad, and even worse when I hit "save and rebuild." Had I not futzed with this once before a few years ago I could probably just reload an old template. But I can't.

For now my banner link is hosed. I plan to hit up the professionals at work tomorrow for a banner rescue mission.

Update: Thanks awesome co-workers! Banner link is fixed.

Posted by jana at 9:51 PM

Hello Jana Spice

I found this awesome hair app (via domesticali)so my husband can feel better if I cut my hair a la Posh Spice. The first image is supposed to be the "before."

Here are a few other styles I tried:

Much more fun than the actual salon.

Note: the fancy embedded widget isn't showing up in RSS feed readers so if you're wondering what I'm blogging about you'll have to actually visit my blog.

Posted by jana at 2:36 PM | Comments (3)

August 6, 2007

Signs I've been waiting for

#1. 4 parties this weekend. Not so-rare indoor food fight. Do you believe me?

#2. Redemption of the item we auctioned off for Karsten's school. Gourmet meal by the beach, row boat ride, s'mores. A beautiful evening that I can't even verify with photos. I'm talking chilled salad plates and napkin rings, people.

#3. I'm about to be "auntie" again any day now. How can I not capture the moment?

#4. FUGLY couch just purchased. Yes, really FUGLY. I can't zoom in on nasty polyester type fabric to show you just how fugly.

#5. We're going to see my grandpa soon. The kids need photos with their great-grandpa. He's the only Great Level grandparent left.

My crappy camera went kaput.

Aaron has been advising me on a camera to buy. Andrej agrees I need aperture and shutter speed control. Of course I do! This is the one in my shopping cart. Must bring myself to proceed to checkout. Now... Now.. really.. now. Damn, I'm so cheap. Still haven't bought it.

Still.

Posted by jana at 4:42 PM

August 2, 2007

the downlow on the BU

that would be "the down low on the Becca Update."

I spoke with her this afternoon and all is still well inside her incubation pod. Monday is still the day for baby's schedule World Entry.

I will patiently wait.

Posted by jana at 10:48 PM | Comments (1)

Why buying furniture for our house is difficult

Email exchange between hubby and me:

Me: Found this awesomely cute shaped couch on craigslist today for only $75. We can go look at it tomorrow night after the party. The guy's giving me measurements.

It will be a project couch though because I'd have to sew a new slipcover for it.

hubby: no link?

me: don't freak
http://seattle.craigslist.org/sno/fur/387760116.html
I think with a plain slipcover it will rock.

hubby: why in effin hell would you want this pile of crap?! ;-)
Sell our nice couch and get this rat infested flea bomb?
You'll need more than a slip cover... i'll need a slip cover for my eyes!

Me: This is for our BEDROOM. I sold the rocking chair.

Remember, I have the ability to spot a diamond in the rough: husband included. :)

------------
Conclusion:
waiting to see if we get this couch. I think it is the most fantastic couch ever. Ever. (with a new slipcover anyway.)

Posted by jana at 3:07 PM | Comments (3)

August 1, 2007

Papa Likes Coffee

I forgot to add this to the friend's news post. A friend of mine started roasting her own coffee beans. I've been buying Starbucks beans for years now but that was until I got a hold of the beans Kathy has been roasting. Beautiful!

Here's a link to buy her Papa Likes Coffee.

The site is pretty sparse but you can take my word for it: YUM.

Posted by jana at 11:05 AM