hello 2012, nice to meet ya!

Wow, 2011 was quite a year. We decided to leave my home of 15 years, Asheville. I spoke in front of over 300 people. I helped organize a my first fundraiser with a lot of help from Meg & Leslie! Good work ladies!  We put our Asheville house on the market and it sold in TWO DAYS!! We sold the only place I ever felt totally safe, our Broad Street house.  We bought a new house in West Washington Park in Denver, CO. I drove a 28 foot truck from Asheville, NC to Denver, CO.  We moved to Denver less than six weeks after we put our house on the market in Asheville. I gained a son, Antonio, then we lost him. Heartbroken is the only word I can think to describe what this was like. We are still healing from this.

Things have been up and down since Antonio left. We miss him. He misses us. He could use any prayers or good thoughts if you have any to spare, so could we. Even with the tough times, there have been some really good times.

Meg & I love our house and neighborhood. Everything you could want to do is close by. We live just minutes from downtown Denver. We hit up the local goodwill pretty often. We found a new mexican place, called El Diablo, a couple of weeks ago. Amazing tacos! We saw our first Denver Nuggets game a few nights ago. AMAZING!! The Nuggets are really looking good this year. We had such a great time.

We are starting to make friends. We attended a Christmas party that was mostly southerns! We had a blast. We both miss the south, because let's face it, there it no place like home.

I gained an amazing friend & room mate. I don't know how we scored Justin, but if you have ever heard my talk about him, I know we are super lucky to have him. He is a handy man, figureouter of all stuff, & a major rescuer extraordinaire.

Mambo the cat is still in love with Denver. I attribute his happiness to two things. One he is having a bromance with Justin. They are such good buddies. It's so cute. Also, the cat to human ratio is perfect for Mambo. 3:1, cat perfection!

To start off 2012, we are doing some house renovating. By we, I mean Justin, of course! We are re-doing the hard woods we found under world's ugliest, cheap tile. (thanks to Brittany & Tate for checking to see if they were there, we had no idea!) We are getting a new renovated bathroom in January... complete with a claw foot tub, nice octagon white tile, bead board with a chair rail and a few other awesome vintage surprises. I will do a nice before (ugly shell sink and other ugly stuff) and after shot! We are pumped up to rid ourselves of the 80's shell sink that is there right now.

We have a number of road trips planned for 2012.

The first one is in late January. We plan to drive cross country back to Asheville, with stops in St. Louis, & Nashville. Then's is off to Charleston, SC to see the cutest kids in the world, Finn and Addie & spend time with world's best friend ever, Hilary!!! Then we will hit the road again to Baton Rouge. Then back to Denver. We will have little stops along the way and we will photograph our travels as usual. I love to blog when we travel, so I can remember what the hell we did and what fun we had!!

My plan to blog about what inspires me this past year was really fun. Overall, I was the most inspired by simple things. Hope, change, peace, love. I plan on continuing the inspiration blog posts, along with travels posts and whatever else I feel like talking about.
I learned a lot this year and I am sure that 2012 has big plans for me, just like I have for 2012.

Happy New Year Folks. Let's make the most of it!

Bad Blogger Girl!

I have been a bad blogger girl. I am hopeful that Santa does not read my blog. If he does, I am in big trouble. I always look forward to Christmas. I have a number of vintage christmas decorations, I look forward to pulling out of the boxes each year. See the nice view from my desk below.

Christmas is one of the few breaks I take each year. Taking a break to spend time with family and friends is very inspiring to me. I had an old friend lose his life partner in a tragic accident last weekend. Life is short! Work will always be there to be done, but someone you love may not.

As you all have surely noticed I have been neglecting my blog lately. I am super busy with graphic design projects. I have been working on two custom greetings cards, that I produce each year... in addition to my already full work load. I am in the midst of four logos, three websites, a catalog and a few other odds and ends.

Lately, (for the last year or so) I have been obsessing over Victorian everything. Advertising architecture, fashion, industrial design, even christmas ornaments. You name it, if it's Victorian, I am into it. I am working on a logo right now for a historic inn (see above), that was built in 1856. I have been doing research and working on the logo for over two weeks and I still have so many ideas!!

I wanted to show you guys a few of the images I found (mostly out of a couple of library books) that inspire me design wise. I am loving banners and how in victorian times, no type was on a straight line. Everything that was type had a curve it somewhere. Also, everything was designed to KEEP, not throw away. Interesting how times have changed, isn't it? I am more on the designed to keep side of that story.

The photo is of some vintage match book labels. I am amazed at how cool these are.

Alright, back to work. Hopefully, this post (along with a couple more before the holidays) will put me back in good graces with the big man at the North Pole!