Prickly Pear Bloom

The Fiancee’s sister threw us a wedding shower, hosted at The Fiancee’s brother’s house, and helped by my “maid of dishonor”. I had always had sort of a negative opinion of wedding showers, and I normally don’t like to be the center of attention, especially when opening gifts, however, this party was ALOT of fun. About half of our wedding guestlist was there, mostly close family that are close enough in proximity to be able to come, and 2 of our wedding party. The Fiancee’s mom, and my mom and grandmother brought pictures of us (1993 was definitely not one of my better years). There was lots of food and beer, and I think we did a decent job of mingling and talking to everyone. It seems like our families like each other, too. It was really nice seeing everyone in one place, and watching them meet each other again, since some of them had only met once before at our housewarming party 3 years ago, and it reminded me that this wedding is going to be so much fun.

The weekend was a whirlwind. We got alot done, and yet nothing at all, it seems. Friday was spent running around and shopping. I got a few lovely pieces of beachy clothing, and decided on a pair of prescription sunglasses, since who knows when I will be able to officially wear contacts again, if ever. Saturday we had a lovely morning at the Farmer’s Market with coffee, croissants, and Shane, and then did some homework and design and wedding decoration prep, and then the shower. Sunday morning gave me a leisurely walk with my mother and grandmother, and she shared some fun stories with us, including the time she was hit by a car in 1934. Then we went for lunch at the Delafield Brewhaus with Misse, Brad, and lovely Ava Grace, who is stunning. I hadn’t seen her since she was 2 days old and surprised to be alive, and now she is walking and as strong as an ox! Luckily, she likes strangers, and wasn’t afraid of me as I was expecting. She drooled all over me, and I blew raspberries with her. I sure hope that we all get to see each other more often as she grows, so that I don’t become that strange blonde lady.

Instead of having a traditional guestbook for the wedding, I wanted to have separate cards for people to write their thoughts on. Then after the wedding we can either put them into a book of our own, or I will make a box for them. I found a fabulous pelican rubber stamp for the image, which is fitting since there are pelicans everywhere around Sanibel. And I love them.

I used 4 different papers, and pink, white, and metallic silver inks, and I printed on both sides of each card. I think they are pretty groovy.

So retro. So blue. So cool.

Pelican Paperbacks on Flickr
I especially like this one, this one, this one, and this one

Yesterday, HP announced difinitive plans to aquire a company that has been a thorn in the design community’s side, LogoWorks. See the backstory of the Logoworks saga here. In a nutshell, LogoWorks is an online logo mill that targets small businesses with rock bottom prices for logos (ballpark $250.00 per mark, which is incredibly low for a piece of a business’s identity that will represent them for years), and sometimes entire collateral packages, then pays their artists $25-50 per logo. Imagine paying your mechanic $50 to replace the brakes in your car. I am guessing they would laugh at you. Even if you did find someone that would, you would then expect every mechanic to charge that, right? Not only does this devalue the expertise and education of every graphic designer, making it increasingly harder for those in this profession to make a living and get and retain clients for the fees that they are worth, but LogoWorks has also been identified as having a track record of recycling existing logos with small to no changes, which is unethical at best. Sounds like plagiarism to me.

The crazy-scary part of HP aquiring LogoWorks, is that the visibility will now be much greater, since they will be backed by a huge company. I can just imagine software packages including do-it-yourself logos popping up in Office Depot. Who needs a designer to create unique concepts and artwork for you with research and an actual marketing strategy? This perpetuates the already growing notion that designers are not only unneeded resources, but that they don’t deserve to be paid what they are worth.

And I have a feeling it is only going to get worse.

My favorite part of the press release, “fraction of market cost”:

HP to Acquire Logoworks, a Web-based Design Service Company for Small Businesses

PALO ALTO, Calif., April 24, 2007

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HP today announced it has signed a definitive agreement to acquire Arteis, a privately held company that operates Logoworks, a leading distributed web-based graphic design service provider.HP plans to leverage Logoworks’ technologies and services to provide small businesses with access to professional design solutions at a fraction of market cost. Supported by hundreds of graphic designers worldwide, Logoworks’ affordable packages range from simple logo design to the development of a full suite of marketing collateral.

“Today’s small businesses are increasingly turning to the web for marketing tools and services that strike a balance between affordability and quality,” said Vyomesh Joshi, executive vice president, Imaging and Printing Group, HP. “By adding Logoworks’ web-based graphic design service to our portfolio, HP can now provide the right mix of cost savings, flexibility and professional quality to help make a small business look big.”

Arteis, based in Lindon, Utah, also owns LogoMaker, a do-it-yourself design application for customers with a more limited budget. HP plans to greatly expand and enhance both Logoworks and LogoMaker’s simple-to-use web-based design services and use independent print service providers to help deliver a great value to customers.

The acquisition is subject to customary closing conditions and is expected to be completed in HP’s third fiscal quarter. Financial terms of the transaction were not disclosed.

About HP

HP focuses on simplifying technology experiences for all of its customers – from individual consumers to the largest businesses. With a portfolio that spans printing, personal computing, software, services and IT infrastructure, HP is among the world’s largest IT companies, with revenue totaling $94.1 billion for the four fiscal quarters ended Jan. 31, 2007. More information about HP (NYSE: HPQ) is available at www.hp.com.

I could watch this all day.

I know this isn’t Episode 4 for you, and come to think of it, it might even be Episode 5 for me, but I like this title, and it seems appropriate, so I am using it anyhow.

I must be hopeful, because I started this post with just a hopeful title, a few days ago, when I was feeling decidedly hopeless, so I must have WANTED to have hope.

So. the saga of my eyes continues…

I think I may be entering the “acceptance” phase of grieving coping with this situation, because 3 days ago, I started to feel ALOT less angry and depressed about the whole thing. Maybe it is because I am starting to feel more normal? Last Monday my opthalmologist put 2 more plugs in my tear ducts, to retain 100% of my tears in my eyes. Shortly thereafter, my left eye was definitely teary. It was overflowing. It was mildly annoying, but all day I hoped that maybe that meant I would wake up the next morning with not a dry eye.

Unfortunately, that was not the case. On Wednesday and Thursday mornings, I actually had to saline rinse my eyes in the morning to hydrate them, because it was too difficult to get drops in. I spent alot of that week feeling sorry for myself, and wondering why this was happening to me, and crying both involuntarily and voluntarily from emotion, and worrying the fiancee with my distress. The stress probably didn’t help me. Heck, the crying over it probably didn’t help either. But I was miserable, and felt like I was never going to have normal eyes again. Finally, on Friday, I called my opthalmologist’s office and asked if they could get me in to at least take out one of the plugs in my left eye, because after that week of overflowing tearage, my eye felt swollen with tears, and as if it was going to pop out of my head. They got me in, and he took the upper one out. Amazingly, that eye was STILL teary for the remainder of Friday, and Saturday, even with the one plug out, but it was much more comfortable and bearable. Since then, it has waned off, and both of my eyes actually feel sort of comparable.

But my lids are still stuck to my eyeballs in the morning.

So the acceptance lies in that I am perhaps coming to terms with the fact that this may be a lifelong battle, or it may not, and I will probably still be dealing with this when we go to Florida, and to Italy. That still doesn’t make me happy, but it no longer makes me angry enough to throw small cars across the parking lot.

At least for now.

There is a fence. In our front yard. Right this moment. Look!

This project has been ongoing for at least a year now, perhaps even two, I’m just not sure. All winter it was just lonely posts out in the front yard. But now there are slats, and panels, and wood, and an almost enclosed space! And I helped, a little. I got to operate the nail gun for a bit.

The fiancee isn’t as proud of it as he had hoped he would be, because there are some warped pieces, and it may have some wobbly bits, but it looks darn good from aways away. But I am proud of him for working so hard on it. And someday it will have a gate! And soon I can plant some things out there!

Today was the first of many of my favorite days of the summer in Madison, and really one of my favorite parts of Madison, the Dane County Farmer’s Market. I won’t miss a Saturday morning on the square unless I am out of town, or getting married, or honeymooning in Italy, which I guess falls all under the “out of town” umbrella anyhow. It was amazingly busy for the first market of the summer, even at 8am, since it was a beautiful morning, and scheduled to be a fantastic day all around. The fiancee and I got our coffee and some breakfast, and met up with my good friend, Shane, halfway around the square, and it was quite a nice start to the summer, if I do say. And I bought some honey, but not in bear form.

I do love this town.

 

I am making some very fabulous cards with table names for the wedding reception, and I needed something to hold them up, and after much searching of the internets, I only found a couple of places to get the regular old wire ones that you would see in restaurants or parties, and for crazy shipping to boot, which didn’t make me all that happy.

So I decided, being the crafty gal that I am, to attempt to make them instead. I found some scallop shells for a pretty reasonable price on ebay, and some groovy bamboo twist chopsticks, and this weekend we are attempting to assemble them. We got some wooden crafting balls, and glued them to the underside of the shells to give them a tripod base for stability, since on their own, they aren’t exactly flat. Then the fiancee drilled holes into them, where the chopstick will go. Chopstick gets hot glued in, some large lead fishing sinkers get glued to the underside for weight, and an alligator clip gets glued to the top of the stick for the card.

All in all, I think these things are ending up more expensive than if we had just bought the lame wire ones, but dammit, they’ll be cute and original at least!

Some Flickr inspiration:
Morran ate it all
granatäpple
labyrinth
to answer your question Jenny