Coming Soon One Day: My new website dedicated to topics like designing with Squarespace.
I'm a freelancing "creative type" making a career out of helping others express themselves creatively. My site includes both professional & personal content. Here in the blog, you're as likely to read my random musings as something related to my particular twist on self-employment. For more, you might want to read this page.
Wednesday, 1 September, 2010 at 12:38 AM 
Although I've never seen one of these growing at home, I hear they're very common in these parts. It's a plant called "Bird of Paradise." And it's very, very cool.
Monday, 30 August, 2010 at 1:09 AM 
Spending nearly two weeks in LA in the home of people I'd never met didn't appear anywhere in my travel plans when I started looking at flights to Seattle. However Seattle wasn't to be my only destination city this time, and so I expanded my search to include flying into Portland and taking a train to Seattle a few days later. Just to check my options... That was the search that brought LA onto my Travel Radar.
Maybe a little back story is in order: A couple of years ago when Bob and Brenna Redpath hired me to collaborate on the design of their blog (From Here to Eternity) that would chronicle the dispensing of most of their things, their jobs and their home so they could travel with their children for a year, our connection was immediate. Which isn't THAT unusual. I've made several friendships with people who started out as clients. This time a feeling of kinship emerged that had to do with even more than a shared fascination with moving from place to place and collecting stories from interesting people. The rhythms that appeared during our long-distant meetings made it feel as if these were friends who'd been with me for a long time. And so they traveled Europe, then moved on to Morocco then Peru... and then they came home on August 10. Excited for them, still, my West Coast destination didn't factor them into my itinerary. Until, that is,
Friday, 27 August, 2010 at 6:57 PM 
My biggest mistake which turned out to be my biggest smart move was agreeing with my friend that I would come spend the night at her house before leaving town. This forced me to be packed and ready to walk out the door at 5pm 7:04pm last night. Worst move because it was just hard and stressful and kicked my butt to handle all the stuff I needed to do yesterday before I headed to her house. Biggest smart move? Well, because a) I got to see my friends (this friend AND her mom with whom I hitched a ride,) for the first time in many weeks, and that's always always fun, and b) I got a trial run.
On travel trial runs: We like them. And what I'm talking about is that tiny matter of how airlines now charge an extra fee if you're going to check a bag. And how it's impossible for me to imagine managing my life for 6 weeks with the amount of items I can legally carry onto an airplane with me. So yea, I'll pay your new baggage checking fees. BUT