6/22/2009

Birthday presents for myself...

This weekend I indulged in some shopping. My excuse? Well, my birthday!

Here's what I came away with:



Not exactly en route, but as I was driving from Lynn to Amherst this weekend, I took a side journey to greater downtown Topsfield, MA, home of Absolutely Everything, a rubber stamp and scrapbooking store. I think that their selection was wide and fabulous, but it's a bit hard to know as we no longer have independent craft stores in this little village of Philadelphia. I indulged in some stamps from my favorite company, Stamper's Anonymous, a few other bits and pieces and especially, some acryllic blocks to use with unmounted, cling stamps. Yes, she's finally joining the modern era of stampers. Maybe it's good that I don't live near this shop...



My next stop was Brattleboro, VT, home to many cute shops including Dragonfly Drygoods, one of the few even remotely local distributors of Emma Bridgewater pottery. I do want everything in the Black Toast line, but I settled for the pieces above.



Okay, not related to my birthday or to recent shopping, but still undocumented purchases, these pieces are from the very retired Dansk Floating Leaves line. Ebay is my friend. The plate is one of a set of four dessert plates. Now will she dive in and get the sugar bowl??? I wonder if there's a teapot? Maybe these are things I don't need to know...

6/17/2009

Life in the big city, part whatever...

In which Joanna renews her driver's license...

In Pennsylvania you are required to renew your driver's license every four years, and unlike in some other states you have to get a new picture taken for your license each time. There is a two step process for the renewal: 1) When you get the renewal notice, pay your fee, and receive a camera card back in the mail, and, 2) Go have your picture taken at a PennDOT center to have the actual card issued. And in Pennsylvania your license expires the day after your birthday in the given year.

I received my renewal in April and had long since paid my money and gotten my camera card in the mail. And since the last time I went to get my picture taken for my license, it was all of a five minute procedure at a suburban office - literally, no waiting - I wasn't worried or in a hurry. Then suddenly it was the middle of June and time to get off the stick.

Four years ago, I got my licensed renewed and picture taken in Rosemont, where I was the only customer and where two clerks were arguing and vying to see who could take a better picture of me. I went out on a Wednesday night before the dance and I tought I would do the same thing this time. But being sensible, I decided to check on PennDOT's website to make sure the Rosemont office was still open late on Wednesdays. After 10-15 minutes of searching the website and trying, mostly failing, to find the simple list of PennDOT offices and their hours, I finally found the PDF in a non-intuitive section of the site and discovered that evening hours had been severely curtailed, not only in Rosemont, but at all of the offices, and that the only night any center was open late was Thursday. Guess who has plans this Thursday. And guess who will have an expired license if she waits until next Thursday. So, for better or for worse, I decided to brave a Center City office and rationalized this decision by telling myself it was relatively close to my office, I take a late lunch so the big crowds will have dissipated (incidentally, this theory never holds true at the post office either), and that it's just a picture, which should be a quick thing. Right.

I leave my office on 15th and Walnut just before 1:30pm, headed for the PennDOT office on 11th and Market. As I approach the address, things don't look promising. Buildings look vacant. Not good. Finally, I notice a small sign in one of the windows saying that this PennDOT location closed on May 30th and all business will now be conducted at the next closest office, some 5-ish blocks away on 8th and Arch. Now the clock is ticking.

I make it to 8th and Arch at about 1:45pm to discover a long line out the door. Figuring that the line is for people waiting to take a learner's permit test, I walk up to the door and peer in, but everyone I ask says there's just one line. While I figure it never occured to anyone else to ask if it was otherwise, I get in line and start calculating how long I can wait before I have to cry off so I can get back to work in time.

The line is the typical downtown scene: many younger folks getting permits now that school is out, mothers with small children in tow. Behind me a young woman waiting to submit a change-of-address form gets uppity when an elderly woman who has trouble walking is helped inside ahead of others (likely to sit down), even after two people tell her she can submit her address change online at any computer with internet access and not have to wait here at all. Still she remains on line, yelling about how unfair it all is.

Finally, really only a few minutes later, an employee comes outside and issues numbers to the three of us on the long line with camera cards. I rush in and am taken right away, answer three questions, and am allowed to select the best of three pictures. A minute later I'm back out the door, in plenty of time to walk back to work and hopefully forget about PennDOT for four more years.

6/16/2009

I made it happen...

After all, it's nothing a trip to Ikea can't take care of...



Once upon a time you could walk into Ikea and buy these sturdy sets of drawers ready to go. Now you have to put them together, and they are not quite big enough and they are never quite square when you are finished, but they are, nevertheless, perfect in this setting. I now have a place for the miscellaneous things that need gathering, and a raised surface for the things I always need to hand - wipes for stamp cleaning, double-sided tape, exacto knife, without sacrificing usable desk surface. I love it already, only a day after final assembly. (And inevitably, stamps will end up in a decent portion of those drawers I'm guessing...)

And yes, the craft room will never be finished, but it's slowly getting into shape!

6/09/2009

Someone else's story...

Sometimes I think the real purpose of many of the blogs I follow is to spread news around, not to post new and original ideas. This post will emulate that line of thinking...



Image: Kriss's Color Stripes. This image reminded me that I have a couple of shelves to put up in my craft room but haven't gotten around to doing so. I love this idea of an instant shelf/hutch that incorporates storage for small items. I could probably make this happen with some of my sets of stamp drawers from Ikea...

Next find: Are you ever in a cafe, trying to keep track of the time so that you don't over-steep your tea, but in danger of being distracted by whatever else is happening on your laptop? Well, now there's a website just for you (this thought from Teaspoon & Petals).

Well, two unoriginal ideas will have to suffice. Perhaps more to come from my house, garden, life when the miasma of this cold and current streak of weather lifts...

6/03/2009

The strangeness of shoes...

Okay, this post is totally random...

In my bedroom tonight, I noticed 4 pairs of black shoes.



This in and of itself is not unusual. Clearly I wore them all in the not to distant past and kicked them off and didn't put the back where they live in an orderly way. This is also not unsusal.



Have you noticed something in common about each pair of shoes?



Yes, in every case, the left shoe was upright an the right shoe is over on its side. I'm sure this is full of meaning.



Discuss.

6/01/2009

Bits and Pieces

A few images from the last week:



In my opinion, the picture doesn't do this birthday card justice. It's simple, but cute, and I stole the idea fair and square from a magazine. It satisfies my love of grid patterns and embossed papers (embossed by my very own self).



I finally sorted through all of my fabric scraps, and discarded the two by nothing bits that weren't good for a thing. The remainders just fit into the eight bins I bought (from the Container Store, of course) which fit neatly on my top two shelves. It's hard to imagine how one that hardly sews can end up with fabric to fill eight bins, but there it is. And yes, there is more fabric in my trunk, but I'm afraid to look...



And finally, my rose bloomed over the weekend! I first thought it would be red, but the picture barely does justice to the dark fushia/pink. Dare I cut any blooms to adorn my house?? I need a cutting garden. Maybe next year...