sakura ring

if there is anything that dabney loves almost as much as she loves annie, it's cherry blossoms (ok, and polka dots and fruit motifs - but that's it).

here is the latest mogo creation . soon to be available on etsy and the new mogo website that's in the works. more on that later.

tan lines are my enemy

generally, i can tan in 15 minutes. after coming down here for so many years, you'd think i'd learn a lesson - florida being the sunshine state and all.

after a day of deep-sea fishing a couple of years ago, i ended up looking like this.


the other day, we decided to go for a long bike ride. i thought i'd put on a long-sleeved shirt to avoid getting too much sun. now, i know a striped shirt does me no good. striped shirt = striped annie.

nothing much new to report

how many pictures can we take from the same p.o.v.? here's today's version.

the week's forecast keeps improving so we are psyched to finally get some of the sun we came down here for. in the meantime, we've been brewing up a new scheme for the mogo website and some new wearables. stay tuned for details.



oh yeah, we also gave the dog a bath...



...and visited a favorite ice cream joint.

milder than home

the view

according to the widget, it's a chillly 55 degrees here in st. pete under mostly cloudy skies. at this very minute, i am sitting on the balcony in one spot of sunshine that thankfully makes me feel warm enough in my fleece. i am NOT complaining, mind you. i know back home it's an ungodly 20 degrees out, but it's funny how quickly one acclimates or i should say gets spoiled by the weather here. oh, 55? brrr... i can tell just by looking at fashion who lives here all year round. heavy jackets and long pants indicates native. snowbirds, like me, stubbornly sport open-toed shoes and shorts determined to make the most of the milder-than-home temps.

a visit

ann's parents and aunt joined us for a couple of days in st. pete this past week.

dinner is always a good time. this is a pretty typical scene: ann's mom telling some silly story, all of us reacting - her dad especially.



on my dad's advice, we made a trek to see the manatees at homosassa springs, where all the big guys go to escape the cold waters in winter.





i give you the lacoste family, courtesy of orlando's premium outlets:



all in all, feidler is enjoying the old folks home. aside from the carpeted condo- which makes it easier for him to move about- he can go outside and sit on the balcony whenever he likes. he's made friends with all the fellow retirees in the building, who can, and do, talk for hours about things like arthritis. if it weren't so uncouth, i'm sure we'd all have equal amounts to say about incontinence and passing gas.

feidler wins best in show!

ok, not quite. in fact, feidler couldn't be further from the "standard" english springer spaniel with his enormous size and giant feet. nonetheless, he considered the victory his and woke out of his restful slumber just in time to catch the westminster kennel club's best in show beauty contest last night.

congratulations, james, from your biggest fan!

hello from st. pete.

we are in florida for our annual winter retreat. we come here when we want to escape the bitter cold of boston. so, last week, we packed up most of mogo and the dog and drove the 21 hours down the eastern coast. we'll probably be here for another two or three weeks, depending.

if you want a mental picture, here you go:



we've got email and internet, so feel free to drop us a line. we'll do the same.

i finally got a treasury...

i have been stalking etsy for weeks now and finally got a treasury list of my very own. for those of you non-etsy people, etsy is like ebay but for handmade goods. for those non-treasury etsy people, treasury lists are reader-curated selections of etsy items for sale at the moment.

anyway, here's a screen shot of my picks, including the alternates (in case my first picks are sold and leave the site).



i think my list turned out rather nice. the theme, if you can't tell, is all about items that are cut out, have holes, etc...

the trick is that only 101 lists are active at a time. which means that you have to wait for one to expire in order to vie for your own. if you are lucky, you'll be in the right place at the right time when one of those lists expire. if you are REALLY lucky, you can get one of those 101 spots when they come up for grabs. and if you are REALLY REALLY lucky, your completed treasury list will be plucked out of all the other lists, and featured on the front page of etsy.

those etsy people are smart (hi matt!). because i have been on etsy about 100 times just today to see how my treasury list is doing, and how many comments i've gotten in response. which means i hang around the other treasury lists and check out all the other items. which means that i also bought something today from those lists.




it's a mini mobile from leah pellegrini's shop. i can't wait to get it in the mail and find a place for it in our apartment. ann thinks she is going to hang it from our car's rear view mirror. i am here to tell you she is not.

prototype

i'm pretty tickled with a ring that i made the other day. i've been fiddling around with these for the past week and finally got one that i was happy (enough) with. it's still a little spotty, but i think i figured out how to make it better. in the meantime, i am wearing this one around, for "product testing." next up is a plum blossom i think.