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.

my name is annie and i am a...

ok. i admit it. i am a little addicted to flickr. i am the worse kind of flickr stalker. it's not that i like flipping through others' photos (although i like that too), but i love looking through people's diaries and sketchbooks. not only do i admire the sheer talent, i envy the scanning and uploading diligence.

a perfect example: kate* regularly sketches something she's bought each day. the drawings are absolutely charming and fun, if not a little kooky. i love them.



see the rest of her "daily purchase drawings" here.

my pattern of late. and, also, other patterns.

ann informed me that i needed to blog today. she's being carrying the reins for the past couple of weeks, so i am obliging. though usually, i never do what ann suggests i should. like wash the dishes.

not blogging has been part of my overall hibernation phase since christmas. i haven't been going out at night much, haven't been calling anybody, and generally haven't left my pajamas.

instead, i am obsessed with patterns. now that i have a newer version of illustrator and photoshop on my computer, i spend countless hours making up repeating designs to my hearts content. here's a sneak peek of some works in progress:







this has also meant experimenting with all sorts of inket fabrics and bubble jet set, in the hope that i can - at last- create custom textiles. so far, the process is a little spotty, or, i should say, bleedy. but i already see improvement, and hope to make some *new* projects out of the *new* fabric soon.

in the meantime, to feed my growing addiction, i ordered this book on japanese fabrics that i can't wait to get in the mail.



and while i was ordering japanese things, i also picked myself up one of these.



okay, and maybe one of these.

i hate it when this happens.

ramalamadingdong

a memory upgrade for the house macbook had been long time in coming. dabney is usually one for having about fifteen windows open at once on the laptop and about as many applications whirling away, so any added muscle is helpful.

after a quick visit to the small dog electronics' website - my favorite supplier of all things mac, i had all the fixins i need to get the job done - two pc5300 so dimm 512MB cards (that's funky looking computer chips to me and you).



with directions and new ram in hand, i was all set to go. nevertheless, there is something about cracking open that white case. it makes my hands sweat, my fingers twitch. i know i am a novice techie diva, but it's damn nerveracking to mess with the innards of a computer.

oscar!

oscar nominations came out this morning. if you don't know by now, awards season is big at superette. big.

initial thoughts on some of the major categories...

best actor - glad to see that leonardo decaprio wasn't nominated twice in this category, as he was at the golden globes. generally, it annoys me when someone gets a double nod. five pennies, academy. spend 'em wisely. forest whitaker will probably take it.

best actress - dame helen probably has this one locked up. her portrayal of queen e. made the critics swoon. annoyingly, meryl streep (whom i generally admire, as does the rest of the world) gets a nomination for an unchallenging role (by her standards) in a so-so comedy. she can fart and get nominated. sadly, the oh-so-talented kate winslet will be disregarded once again.

best supporting actress - okay, okay, i haven't yet seen "dreamgirls" but is anyone else weirded out that a former american idol contestant could take home a statue? in my perfect world, the winner would be the "little miss sunshine" cutie.

best supporting actor - tough contest. first off, i have to admit that i just put two and two together recently and made the realization that jackie earle haley is the same tough kid from "the bad news bears." i loved that movie.



thirty years later, i love haley's performance in "little children." i found him perfectly creepy, but i sympathized for him. alan arkin was a great, crusty old man in "little miss sunshine," but man, mark wahlberg in "the departed" (i guess i should say the dePAHted) stole every scene he was in. hilarious. i have to flip a coin in this category. it's that tough.

best director - eh. this will probably be the year that martin scorsese gets his due.

i love the screenplay categories. i view these as the academy's "sorry, if only your picture had a bigger oscar campaign..." consolation awards.

adapted screenplay - ooh tough. while my vote would go to "little children," i can see the academy tossing a bone to "the departed." but honestly, i'd pay big money to see sacha baron cohen's oscar acceptance speech. wa-wa-wee-wah!

original screenplay - if "babel" doesn't win the BIG ONE, then it might win here. "little miss sunshine" would be my sentimental favorite, but if i were gambling type, which, of course, i am (stay tuned for the upcoming OSCAR POOL) my money would be on "the queen."

best picture - i guess it's notable that "dreamgirls," the golden globe winner, didn't get a mention. worse - the fact that "little children" was overlooked as well. there doesn't seem to be a clear cut winner. so when in doubt, do what the academy always does and vote for clint eastwood. sigh.

for a complete list of nominees to check out, and disagree with any of the above thoughts, go here.

here a wot, there a wot

last night, we enjoyed the company of boston tara and a new friend over a gorgeous meal of ethiopian food - catered by dabney.



it just so happens that one of our local corner shops happens to be owned by an ethiopian family that thankfully does a great job with providing our neighborhood with all the right ingredients.



washing, chopping, measuring, stirring, sautéing - dabney was in that kitchen for six hours! but in the end, there was atar allecha, yemeser wot, gomen wot, doro wot, and yetekelt wot. here wot, there a wot, everywhere a wot wot... and man, it was all good.

the cult of moleskine

there is a blog for everything.

evidence: moleskinerie.com features hacks for the ubiquitous oilcloth-bound notebooks. no sooner than our pencil sleeve post went up, they found it, and the hits keep coming.

i certainly love my m. journal (which i lovingly refer to as my "idea book"), but i had no idea the cult of moleskine even existed. sure is fun to see what others do with theirs.

pencil sleeve

new year, new items. here, we present the mogo pencil sleeve (for lack of a better name) - a variation of our ever-popular craft case. it attaches to the front cover of your favorite journal or sketchbook to give your writing implements a home. here it's attached to my moleskine journal. want one for yourself? check out our store.

who's cuter tom brady or tai shan?

all true new england sports fans were glued to their sets yesterday afternoon watching the pats win in the playoffs. dabney and i weren't among them, not being huge sports fans outside of tennis and every four years when the olympics or world cup soccer are on. in fact, we've been known to opt for puppy bowl over football on super bowl sunday. so yesterday, while most of our friends and neighbors were watching fumbles and game-winning field goals, we found the perfect thing to watch - BABY PANDA'S FIRST YEAR on animal planet.

super stamps

sometimes, i am behind the times, because these have probably been out forever. nonetheless, i am in love with the super hero stamps i just picked up at the post office. look how colorful!


her expression says, "ann, can't you think of anything better to blog!?"


"i'm in a hurry! i have to rescue your readers from extreme blog boredom."

when there's nothing to blog...

...take pictures of mail and meals.

a big trip, a fabulous party, a surprise, some bout of good luck... wish we had something new and exciting to report. truth is it's been pretty quiet around here. dabney's been exploring new designs, while i have been tinkering with the new sewing machine (which i love, by the way).

which leads us to share the mundane:

our mail carrier brought us a little package. inside was this: a thank you gift from our local npr station. we think ira glass is da bomb, so this was a welcome addition to our public radio mug collection.



dinner that dabney made was yummy last night - casserole with black beans and butternut squash, covered in a thin layer of polenta. this picture probably makes it look disgusting. it wasn't.



oh yes, when there's nothing going on, i take pictures of the dog. the crusty stuff on his nose is remnants of his dinner. nasty.



though we did get a nice surprise when will stopped by and brought us this little gem he found while cleaning out his aunt's house. the box is mint- circa the 70s at least. it obviously channeled the future back then; the image is me cutting fabric. and no, i did not add the nipples and the belly button with my sharpie; they were already there.