Grey Moggie Press

holiday tunes

Is it officially cool to listen to holiday music now? Is it ever cool? When I was younger my mom and I used to groan and roll our eyes when my dad would pull out the holiday records (yes, records) on the day after Thanksgiving. The longer I’m away from home, however, the more I wish I could hear Frosty and Rudolph coming from those old speakers on Black Friday. Over the years, I’ve collected my own stash of holiday music and listen to it as soon as I feel the familiar holiday homesickness.

Now I’ve whittled my massive pile of holiday music into a top ten playlist to share with you in blogland. Do you know how hard that was? I hope you enjoy them! (click on song title to get to iTunes).

joseph, who understood | the new pornographers

we’re goin’ to the country! | sufjan stevens

just like christmas | low

it’s christmas so we’ll stop | frightened rabbit

christmastime | smashing pumpkins

christmas (baby please come home) | death cab for cutie

arms of mary/looking at a baby | the new pornographers

lo! how a rose e’er blooming | sufjan stevens

the cat carol | maryn cadell

song for a winter’s night | sarah mclachlan

Happy Thanksgiving

I am thankful for Eric, family, friends, sunny day, a new home, and two sweet kitties. enjoy your turkey, everyone!

pretty morning

It’s kind of grey and wet here in DC today, but I recently stumbled upon this tiny little piece of art we picked up a few months ago. We kept it wrapped in brown paper and bubble wrap knowing it would hang on the wall when we found a new place to live. I unwrapped it over the weekend and it makes me smile.

On the back, the artist signed with a little note: “2 Melanie, The harvest is all about gathering. Some of us gather fruit. Some family & friends. You got Eric…good pick…” Perfect thoughts for this day before Thanksgiving.

Find other work by Quest Skinner here and at Eastern Market if you're in DC.

project theme colors

After loving my newly painted shelves so much I decided to run with that color scheme for the craft room/office. I’ll keep the walls the neutral color they’re already painted because it really captures the sun that spills into the room every afternoon, but I will try to incorporate turquoise, red, and navy blue throughout the room.

The next project I had in mind was to find a home for my favorite poster. [seen above, by elsie] Luckily, I saved this door from the bathroom cabinet where it no longer fits. (I replaced the door with this fabulous tea towel that was a gift from Kendra). I’ve put a layer of primer on it and my mind is waging an internal debate over the merits of painting the door red, turquoise, or blue. I’ve got lots of fun scraps of red and blue and green paper that will make for a pretty background. Stay tuned for results in a few days…

calendar swap success

This whole calendar swap thing was a smashing success. I got the most beautiful calendar poster in the mail on Thursday from my swap partner. [calendar by caitlin keegan] And it looks like the letterpress calendar I sent her made its way safely as well!

My new calendar will soon be hanging on our dining room wall…right next to this poster!

that was a real weekend

Wow. I am feeling so rested and ready for this week. We biked around our new neighborhood on Saturday looking for good food options. We’ve found lots of fun restaurants in the two weeks we’ve been here, and South Mountain Creamery still delivers our milk, but a lot of the local farmers markets are closing for the winter. We wanted to find a place to get yummy local meat and bread and were so happy to find P & C market a short bike ride away. And for Italian meats, cheeses, olive oil and pasta, we’re now going to head to A. Litteri.

We got our kitchen up and running this weekend. There were lots of warm delicious smells wafting around the new house. Eric cooked a pork shoulder in the crockpot on Thursday and a saag paneer (with fresh cheese) on Sunday while I worked on some handmade gifts. I am a lucky woman! We also got the washer and dryer up and running: Eric is a lucky man. He has piles and piles of clean socks now :)

Did you have a relaxing weekend?

true love

Eric brought these four half walnut shells to me while I was working on stuff upstairs today. “They cracked so perfectly in half, and I’m sure you could find something to do with them.” Even after I refused to go to the bar with him to watch the football game (we decided to go tv-less at the new house). So sweet.

happy friday!

This week has been packed. A while back we noticed that three of our favorite bands were passing through town during the same week. We decided to get tickets to all three shows thereby committing ourselves to a three-concert week. On Monday we saw Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros at the Black Cat. Tuesday we were at the Rock n Roll Hotel for Langhorne Slim and Thursday night brought us back to the Black Cat for Bishop Allen.

All three concerts were fantastic and might be worth the exhaustion now setting in. I guess we’ve got a whole weekend to catch up on beauty rest before Thanksgiving arrives on Thursday.

Happy weekend!

one project done

I am so happy with the final outcome of this project. It’s the perfect place to store little things that I use often. Like glue sticks and book rings and embossing powder and pretty tape. It sits on a table that I’m going to try to keep relatively clear of clutter (we’ll see how that goes, right?) so that when I get a sewing machine as planned in January, it will have a cute home. Perhaps I'll find a sister shelf for bobbins and thread and notions and other items with cute words for names.

I used two coats of craft paint on the shelves. If I were to do this project again I would probably start with a coat of primer.

new shop!

If you're in the DC area, you can catch me and my letterpress cards at the DC Rollergirls Holiday Bash & Craft Fair on December 12th (McFadden's | 2401 Pennsylvania Ave. NW| 8-11pm) Or you can get letterpress holiday cards and tags or a new 2010 mini calendar/planner in my new shop.  Enjoy!

pyramid atlantic 2010 letterpress calendar

I am so excited about this calendar. Several of the letterpress printers from Pyramid Atlantic got together to print an edition of 99 2010 calendars. The project was so much fun. I learned a lot from my own print work – it was the first time I used photopolymer, the first project I completed in Illustrator, and I think it was also the first time I printed in multiple colors. And it was wonderful meeting some of the other printers during a calendar assembly/pizza party last week. Thanks to Moira for organizing!

Keep an eye on Moira’s blog if you want a calendar. She’ll be selling them for $40 there.

And if you’re in the market for holiday cards or gift tags, I’m finally re-opening my shop tomorrow.

baby steps

I hung my first print on the wall today.  My friend, Kristen, found it on etsy and gave it to me when I was the maid of honor at her wedding. Thanks Kristen! I think (though I can’t find the print in the shop anymore) it’s from green chair press. Check it out if you’re looking for neat letterpress prints or a super cute reader's diary.

a new project

I picked up this shelf for $3 on Friday afternoon. I was looking for ink for my printer and never found it. The shelf seemed like a reasonable alternative. I think I’ll paint it turquoise and paint the individual shelves red to add color in my sunny space.

thrifting

one really neat part of the new neighborhood is the abundance of thrift stores. i picked up these frames on my way home today. I can't wait to fill them with treasures and hang them on our now empty walls.

What's your favorite part of moving?

cannonball read | book 1::her fearful symmetry | audrey niffenegger

This morning I logged into gmail and saw this status from my friend Courtney: “Had a dream last night I was Jessica Wakefield and was slow dancing with a Miami Dolphins football player.  I never even liked Jessica - I was an Elizabeth fan!” I remembered I was an Elizabeth fan, too. She was more of a dreamer and a reader and I could totally relate to her. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, I apologize for the absence of the Sweet Valley twins in your past).

I felt the same way about Valentina at the start of Audrey Niffenegger’s new book, Her Fearful Symmetry. Valentina and her twin, Julia, live in the Chicago suburbs with their parents after leaving behind a string of colleges they tried out for a semester or two. They inherit their Aunt Elspeth’s flat in London and the book follows the twins and their neighbors in the house adjacent to Highgate Cemetery. Julia is aggressive and bossy with Valentina, and at first Valentina never stands up to her twin. A few chapters in, I realized I liked Valentina and her kindness, dreaminess, and interest in fashion so much more than the one-dimensional, bossy Julia. I was disappointed in Niffenegger for letting Julia’s character waft leading to my inability to relate to her. Then I turned the page. And there was the story from Julia’s point of view. Have you ever had a two-sided conversation with a book? I asked, “What should I know about Julia?” and the book said, “Well, let me tell you about her.” Beautiful.

Niffenegger also reached out to me by using feline imagery throughout the book. I am a total cat person (if you’ve been reading this blog for some time, you know that). The author brings a kitten into the lives of the twins in their London flat. Valentina tries to befriend and domesticate the cat, while Julia only interacts with the cat as a way to interact with her twin. I learned a lot about the twins in their relations to the cat, known as The Little Kitten of Death. Later, in a scene where one character, Jessica, comes out to her yard to witness an unfolding scene of mayhem among her grandchildren, Niffenegger describes the children’s reaction: “The children instantly stopped what they were doing and looked self-conscious, like cats that have fallen off something ungracefully and now sit licking themselves, pretending nothing has happened.” If you’ve ever lived with or loved a cat, you know exactly how those children looked. I have a feeling Niffenegger knows her audience is filled with cat people.

In addition to Julia and Valentina, their mother, Edie, and their aunt Elspeth, were also twins. They are twins who are so reliant on one another and so intertwined, which leads to the inability to lead singular lives. If you knew twins like Valentina and Julia in real life, they would seem strange. They sleep in the same bed, make all decisions together, dress alike even though they are in their early twenties, and have trouble dating because they don’t understand how boys or men will fit into their combined life. Niffenegger presents these behaviors in such a way that they come across as a bit scary and maybe unhealthy, but also beautiful and somewhat relatable. I remember thinking, “Oh, this is what it’s like to be a twin.” In her review over at Pajiba, Jennifer speaks to the author’s ability to make the “incredible seem absolutely believable.”  In her first book, Niffenegger makes her readers believe in time travel and understand what it might be like to love a time traveler. In this book, she made me believe in ghosts and the possibility that twins may each feel like one half of a whole, even though we non-twins see them as individuals.

As Jennifer writes in her review, the book takes some absurdly complicated turns in the last few chapters.  The book is never uninteresting, however, and the writing, the story, and the imagery make the book worth a read.  And if you want to get even more out of it, read Her Fearful Symmetry on a business trip like I did. There’s nothing like reading a good ghost story before bed and waking up in a dark, unfamiliar hotel room in the middle of the night.

Part of cannonball read. Next up: Zoology.

well i'm glad that's over

So I lied in that last post. We spent all of this past weekend packing, but we didn’t wait until next weekend to move. We moved boxes and furniture and cats all weekend, and when we moved the bed and the dining room table late on Sunday afternoon, we knew we had a new home.

We adore our new neighborhood and the new house. Pony, kitty #2, has adjusted quite well and has been exploring. She even helped me make gift tags today. Ann Taylor, however, is taking a bit longer to call this house her home. Her new favorite activity is finding the best hiding place and because of the ever-moving boxes, she’s decided that’s the spot under the quilt on our bed.

 

Speaking of our bed, we couldn’t get our box spring up the narrow staircase into the bedroom so we’re sleeping on a mattress on the floor. And I kind of love it. It’s like we’re camping every night, but it’s warm and comfortable.

Mostly I’ve been unpacking, trying to remember where we packed the essentials. And working hard to finish a few projects. I should be back online at the house tomorrow so blogging will resume more regularly. Enjoy the photos of my new favorite room in progress.

the big move

eric and i have been missing dc (we live in arlington, va) for a while and wanting a bit more space. we started the search for a new place last weekend and didn’t expect things to move so quickly, but we found a little, pet-friendly house (a whole house!) with a backyard, and an upstairs, and beautiful hardwood floors in the Rosedale neighborhood and fell in love. so we move next weekend…and spend all of this weekend packing.

i meant to get a new shop up and running for letterpressed holiday goods this week, but with being sick and traveling earlier this week, and now with the packing, it will have to wait until the weekend or early next week. i can’t wait to get them out there!

happy weekend!

cannonball read

a few years ago i started reading movie reviews on pajiba. i thought the reviews were smart and funny even when they were mean. i started using the site for recommendations to fill the netflix queue. they started to post “comment diversions” recognizing that their audience was filled with people looking for an excuse to take a 5-minute break from cubicle work. one diversion involved switching your ipod to random and listing in the comments the first 5 songs that came up, no matter how embarassing. the post featured a photo of ashlee simpson. i put my ipod on random and among the decemberists, stars, and the beatles in my top 5 was an ashlee simpson song (that i secretly love). i got freaked out by the coincidence and closed out of the website…until the next time I needed a 5-minute break.

then, in 2007, they published a list of our generation’s best books, as chosen by pajiba readers. it was my first law school summer and i had been longing for books for months. i worked from home that summer so my schedule was flexible. i got a library card and read 10 books in 2 and a half months. i used the pajiba list as a starting point and had a truly enjoyable reading experience that summer.

starting now, pajiba is hosting cannonball read, a challenge to 100 readers to read 52 books in a year. there is a back story, but it’s not really mine to tell (and it’s kind of sad) so look it up on pajiba.com if you’re interested. look for a weekly book review here for the next year.

here are some books i wish i hadn't already read and could review because i loved them so much:

straight man…richard russo

the year of magical thinking…joan didion

the amazing adventures of kavelier + clay…michael chabon

moon palace…paul auster

the beautiful things that  heaven bears…dinaw mengestu

want to help? leave me a book suggestion in the comments.

calendar swap is here

make a list of calendar loving people, pair them up, get them to buy a calendar for their partners, and what have you got? design crush’s 2010 calendar swap. yay! i'll be swapping calendars with the lovely lady behind los caballo – 7 iron affair.

get-well playlist

i've been sick. and traveling for work. which is so not a good combination. so it’s a good time to share my 25 most played songs in itunes. yay! songs get onto this list in two ways for me: it’s on a mix that I listen to repeatedly OR it’s a song that omg-i-can’t-get-enough-listen-to-it-on-repeat-for-48-hours. here are the songs that have gotten me through law school exams, the bar exam, and prepping for job interviews, the songs that inspired impromptu dance parties, the songs that made running miles and miles enjoyable, and the songs that live in my head. without shame (even over the one show tune), i'm sharing. enjoy!

 

1. o valencia!...the decemberists

2. mr. november…the national

3. kiss with a fist…florence + the machine

4. spinning compass…langhorne slim (at rock n roll hotel, nov. 17!!)

5. stadium love…metric

6. ageless beauty…stars

7. all my days…alexi murdoch

8. ca plane pour moi…plastic bertrand

9. for the actor…mates of state

10. you, me + the bourgeoisie…the submarines

11. love always remains…mgmt

12. samson…regina spektor

13. defying gravity…idina menzel + kristen chenoweth

14. the crane wife 3…the decemberists

15. death to los campesinos!...los campesinos

16. shake it…metro station

17. time left for love…shout out louds

18. running out…mates of state

19. after hours…we are scientists

20. don’t know why (you stay)…the essex green

21. lloyd, i'm ready to be heartbroken

22. calendar girl…stars

23. angel, won’t you call me?...the decemberists

24. losing streak…eels

25. b******s in tokyo…stars

songs on this list ending with punctuation: 3

most surprising: shake it

bands i’m surprised didn’t make it: the new pornographers + frightened rabbit

song i'm surprised didn’t make it: call it off…tegan + sara

what do you listen to ALL THE TIME?