pengcath

since i'm not online nearly enough already on a daily basis...

2008-02-26T17:32:36Z

i went and started a blogger blog:
Cathy's Sweet Shop

livejournal, i like you, but i think i like blogger a tad more :)

spoiled kitties...

2008-02-21T21:33:15Z

spoiled kitty buttons
Originally uploaded by sukibaby

introducing a new design for spring - spoiled kitty. my goal is to come up with a new design each month so if one design doesn't do so well, maybe another will.

the image on the buttons was the original spoiled kitty design, but then i revised it slightly and think it looks better now:

i've got a screen drying now and will be shooting the new design shortly. hopefully it will go well and i can print some shirts later this evening.

i'm happy to report that we were finally able to rent out our parking spot! all of our phone number tags were taken off the sign we had up but we only received a few calls about it in the last month. how strange. anyways, it's good to be making back some money for our place. if i had less bills to worry about, i would want to help out some of the families who were devastated by that fire yesterday. if they're accepting clothing donations, i could certainly spare some.

i am so furious right now!!!

2008-02-19T21:05:03Z

it is just my luck that when i finally decide to step out for a half hour to go to the post office, the delivery i was waiting for showed up. and of course the security person was not at her desk when i was on my way out so i couldn't ask her to accept the delivery for me. what are we paying more fees for if there is not always someone at the front entrance?!!!

and i'd already waited around all friggin day for my american apparel order that i got fed up and had to go mail out etsy orders. the nearest post office to me was closed yesterday even though there was still mail service. stupid fake holiday!

i've kept a customer waiting on her shirt order so that is why i'm so pissed that i have to keep her waiting another day or two now. just had to vent...

when i'm feeling a bit calmer i will post some happier news.

cathy's sweet shop is two years old!

2008-02-13T20:51:19Z

cathy's sweet shop logo
Originally uploaded by sukibaby

i forgot to celebrate my 2nd anniversary yesterday... my etsy shop's anniversary, that is. my sales have doubled since last year's one year etsy-versary. yay! and i hope they will continue to grow this coming year.

the past week has been spent getting stock ready to send out to a couple of new stores and also finishing and starting portraits. new change purses are done too but i have to wait to see them still as my sewer lives in london (ontario).

happy valentine's to everyone tomorrow! even though the holiday is pretty commercial, i still love to celebrate it.

q. why do i hate taking public transit, especially in the winter?

2008-02-11T22:10:17Z

a. one, because there are crazy people who like to talk to you, though i was lucky enough to not become engaged in conversation with one today. and most are harmless. but more importantly, two, the streetcars are usually crowded and i was not so fortunate today to break someone's fall... he ended up fucking up my back even more than it already is. we need a new mattress, yes, but seriously, this guy could not keep his balance and yet he wasn't holding on to anything, so when the driver accelerated he flew back several times. the second time he fell into my hands and a lady who was seated beside him. of course i happened to be standing right behind him. the last time he fell, he literally fell into the empty seat which the lady who he'd fallen on had vacated. it was kind of funny but my back hurts now. stupid man!

portraits and things...

2008-01-30T18:22:51Z

scout & chloe
Originally uploaded by sukibaby

i've been fortunate to get portrait commissions these past several months and here's the most recent one i finished. the two kitties are both in kitty heaven now so the portrait was commissioned for the owner by her friends, as a way to cheer her up. apparently the cats didn't get along very well, but i thought it best to show them otherwise :)

and here's the one that was first started back in september or october:

the client has a whole bunch of different personas that she's dreamed up for her lucy, a ginger tabby. this one shows her as a hippy cat. the next one i'm working on features her as a hitchhiking halloween gypsy cat!

anywho, i updated my site today. yay for being somewhat productive so far. i really should get off the computer and work on the other things i have on the go!

kittycats

2008-01-28T19:33:37Z

DSCF4469
Originally uploaded by sukibaby

as much as i love our kitties, they often drive me a little bonkers during the day... and night. suki woke me up in the middle of the night and i couldn't get back to sleep, at least not a restful one. she's been a tad sick again this past week, so i thought something was wrong when i woke to a noise and saw her sleeping on the sheepskin rug beside our bed. neither she nor dex seemed to take to that when we first brought it home but she was lying on it and i got paranoid. my rem sleep was disrupted and any chance of getting back to sleep was nixed. even a warm cup of milk after two hours of tossing and turning in bed- a hot toddy as matt calls it - didn't help much.

and now suki is on my lap as i type, my mind groggy. i feel bad for making her move, so i'm procrastinating on the computer when i should be painting. how can you resist such a cute face (pictured to the right) and another one below?

plus, she keeps my lap warm :)

more kitty cuteness:

and driving me crazy:

i finally finished a portrait that was first commissioned last fall. thankfully the client has been really good about not freaking out about the time that's passed. we've both been busy or just got sidetracked and since i have several other paintings to do for her i guess she's seeing it as a big project. portrait pictures to come later this week.

week at a glance

2008-01-26T19:02:02Z

i can't believe it's saturday already. feels more like a sunday to me today. this past week seemed to fly by and it had its share of ups and downs. first the ups:

- last fri and sat was spent hanging out with matt as he finally had some free time. we took in cloverfield on friday, after a sushi brunch at st. lawrence market. mmm. and sat we went shopping at the eaton centre, in search of some new duds for matt. i could not believe how many people there still were after christmas. unfortunately our search for a pea coat for matt was a bit late, as most stores seemed to have removed all their winter wear, or else only big sizes were left. matt did get a new sweater, which he's reserved for our "date" nights :)

- i heard back from one of the places I'd emailed about consigning: headquarters galerie and boutique in montreal! so i will be shipping stock to them in the next few weeks. they seem really cool and sweet. angie's been a great correspondent. it's maddening not knowing if all the other places received my emails or not, or if they will "accept" me. guess i have to be patient... or else start hounding them again in a week or so.

- i was featured on the etsy homepage again, finally! sweet. it brought me a few sales, and i gained a few more "hearts" and also reached 600 items sold last week.

- on tuesday i heard from two fc members and have gigs lined up for march. i'll be helping out this cool chick at the spring one of a kind show at the end of march and will also be joining this cool shop at the beginning. so as one door closed, another one opened!

and the downs:

- i've begun applying for part-time jobs... ugh! i hate having to revamp my resume and i hate waiting to see if people will reply/call me for an interview. my last job that required leaving home was several years ago... it feels a bit like i've been defeated when i have to look for part-time work to supplement my income

- also found out that our maintenance fees are going up. dammit! they're setting up a 24 hour security/concierge desk, for our safety. it better be worth it!

***
that's all for now. some kitty pics will be up by the end of the weekend :)

the end...

2008-01-16T17:10:50Z

mess1
Originally uploaded by sukibaby

yesterday was my final day selling at fresh collective, so i headed down there in the morning with an empty suitcase to bring all my stock home... it was a bit sad, but there were several other designers that happened to stop by too, and i got to say "bye for now" to them. so that was nice. and i'm sure i will be seeing them around toronto, if my plan to do shows this year comes into fruition. first, i must apply and then i have to get accepted :)

anywho, upon my return home, i discovered a broken kitty food bowl (pictured right and below):

i'm not sure what happened, but am guessing suki and dex were chasing each other around and ended up knocking the food bowl downstairs. the suitcase i took with me must have scared them into thinking that we were going away again, so they decided to wreak havoc at home!

suki's curled asleep in my lap as i type right now, and dex is not too far away either, so how can i stay mad at them for long?

in a bid to be more productive, i didn't turn on the tv at all during the day on monday and voila:

a new valentine's card design.

in a short while i'll be heading out to various toronto shops to drop off and pick up stock. and much of the stuff that i brought home from fc will be listed here in the next week or so, or will be sent out to various other shops soon.

here's one of the most recent portrait commissions that i did, a christmas gift from a husband to a wife:

more paintings to show in the next few weeks.

christmas in arizona

2008-01-04T22:11:57Z

AZ_Sunset_day1_0229
Originally uploaded by sukibaby

as promised, here are selected photos from our trip to arizona over christmas. matt took a whole slew of pics with his new camera, so these are all courtesy of him.
this one is of the house where we stayed for the first 4 nights of our trip. matt's sister, sara, and her husband curtis built it themselves. matt's other sister, suzy, also lives with them here. it's an adobe style house, which is quite cool looking compared to the other houses on their "street".

here's a fisheye view of me on a ladder in front of their house:

matt flying in the wind tunnel at skydive arizona:

me, not really enjoying my ride down from the top of the wind tunnel:

the wind tunnel from the outside:

matt's mom, next to a suaro (cactus):

matt and me atop a rock:

ziggy, our little nephew kitty:

princess puddums, our little niece kitty:

one of the sights we saw in sedona:

another sedona sight:

and last but not least, a desert sunset:

kitty pictures

2008-01-02T22:02:18Z

window3
Originally uploaded by sukibaby

i took quite a few photos of suki and dex before we moved from our old place and since we've been at the new place, but only got around to going through them today.
here are a few of my faves:

matt also took a great deal of photos during our arizona vacation, some of which i will post in the next few days...
so far, my plans to be productive in 2008 have not been implemented. i'm still in lazy mode and need to get my butt in gear if i plan to rule the indie designer world this year :)

a new year

2008-01-01T18:29:07Z

i've sort of lost track of time since we went away on holidays before christmas. even though we were only gone for 6 days, it felt like much longer and since we've been back, i find myself unaware of what day it is, or it doesn't feel like it should be the day it is. for example, today. it's the first day of 2008 and it's a tuesday. doesn't feel like a tuesday to me. more like a sunday, since we slept in later than usual and matt's not at work, and also cuz it's snowing outside.

our new year's eve was spent watching movies and drinking champagne in the eleventh hour. for fun, matt and i dressed up even though we were just at home... though only matt stuck it out in his suit the whole night. i couldn't bear to watch a movie in my chinese dress, which i would have most likely ruined.

so our vacation in arizona had its ups and downs, literally...
christmas eve, matt and i experienced the simulation of freefalling by going into a wind tunnel at skydive arizona, thanks to his sister and brother-in-law. it was a very intense experience and personally, once was enough for me. christmas day, i woke up with a sore throat, so the rest of the trip was not as enjoyable as it could have been had i been feeling 100%. boxing day, or the "day after christmas" as it's referred to by americans, we drove to sedona with matt's parents. sedona is famous for its red rock and the scenery there was beautiful. i think the funniest/scariest part of the trip took place there when we "checked in" at the place we were meant to stay for the night. since matt's parents run a b & b, his mom had signed us up to stay at an educator's b & b - people who were formally teachers who open up their homes to guests - because the cost is reasonable and you sort of expect people who are hosting others to be pleasant and have a nice place to stay. well, it turned out the husband and wife who were our hosts were both quite old and sick - the husband could barely walk and breathe and the wife was on morphine for her cancer treatment - so they were not the kind of hosts matt's parents had expected. the scary part was that matt and i almost had to sleep in the basement on separate twin beds with a stained comforter to share between the two of us. the funny part was when matt's mom came up with the excuse that i was with child (not true) and had a bad back so would have to sleep upstairs in the bed that matt's parents were told was theirs. matt's dad had not been let in on the secret, so when matt's mom announced this to the hosts, his jaw dropped and he was like "is there something you haven' told us, cathy?" to make a long story short, matt and i stayed at a motel down the street so matt's parents wouldn't have to sleep in the scary basement. i think we were all better off with that arrangement.

our last full day in arizona was spent doing more sightseeing in sedona and then driving to phoenix for an overnight stay at a hotel near the airport. although it was nice spending time with matt's family during the holidays, it was not quite the warm getaway we'd thought it would be. it was pretty much the same temperature there as it was in toronto, without snow, for most of the trip. so i was happy to get back and see our kitties, though matt's sister's kitties were lovely substitutes while we were there. and even though it was only 6 days that we were away, you would have thought it was an eternity the way dex ran away from us when we came through our front door.

well, i hope everyone else's holidays were joyful and that the new year brings great things all around! i'm off to be somewhat productive now. no official new year's resolutions to speak of, but there are always plans to grow my business, so i best get started asap!

party day!

2007-12-13T17:10:30Z

hope that anyone in toronto that is still shopping for christmas gifts comes and joins us for the sale and party at fresh collective today... despite the weather.
i'll be there with bells on (yeah, right!)

'tis the season...

2007-12-10T21:47:49Z

silver on black clever kitty change purse
Originally uploaded by sukibaby

to be jolly, but lately i've been feeling quite angry (blame it on pms and the stress of the holiday season). my mom just reminded me (over the phone) that i was a moody child and i attested to the fact that i have not quite grown up and out of my moodiness yet. it didn't help matters that i decided to venture into the eaton centre this afternoon. the mall was packed and i'm a fast walker so i was cursing under my breath a trillion times. i can't help but like and identify with a lot of this woman's ideas though. i guess she has got quite a following now and i first came across her stuff when a customer came into fc with this clever bag. very funny.

and speaking of clever bags, i finally listed a few of the aforementioned clever kitty change purses in my shop yesterday. of course, now that the guaranteed holiday mailing dates have passed, the likelihood of them selling for christmas is slim. still, i think the backdrop i chose for them is fitting... kind of like snow falling.

haven't gotten much done today, so i will keep this post short. i must say that i love the desk/organizer accessories at homesense. i picked up a few things today but wanted to get a lot more. i'm kind of an organizing freak... except i have yet to unpack my clothes since we've moved here. yikes. as long as my office/work area is functional and looks good, i'm good to go :)

and it's december!

2007-12-04T15:43:06Z

new holiday banner
Originally uploaded by sukibaby

we are settling in to our new home after almost a week of being here. move day went fairly smoothly - only about 4 hours - though i was happy to be inside mostly directing boxes and things to where they belonged. even still, with stairs in both places, i was a wreck the day after and even the day after that! matt and i both were, partly due to the free bottle of champagne left to us by management which we discovered at 10 pm that same night. i thought it was a very sweet gesture, but according to matt's mom, it was a "cheapie". still it was nice. now our biggest thing is trying to get a hold of management. you'd think they'd want us to pay them the monthly maintenance fees, but they haven't returned our phone calls and yesterday when i tried to email them, the email just bounced back. oh well, we're living in the lap of luxury these days.

the first day, i was able to do a load of laundry in our own place! the second day i ran the dishwasher for the first time. sweet! and we enjoyed an oven-baked dish, which turned out perfect. (our previous place did not have an oven and the place two before the last, had a non-working oven which we took our landlord to court over... yeah, we're hardcore like that) so we are pretty happy to have an almost brand new one here. the other night we took stuff to our storage locker, which is bigger than i thought. it beats having to store everything in your basement and having to see it everytime you go down. the rest of the time we have been unpacking gradually. i just got my shop stuff somewhat organized yesterday and will finally be able to sit down and paint again, soon!

the cats are loving the place too, although it always takes dex a bit longer to adjust than suki. he was hiding most of the first day and several times i thought he'd just disappeared. now both of them are literally climbing the walls or wall posts and trying to get as high as possible, what with the 10 foot ceilings here...

and today is a big delivery day for us. we had a shopping spree on sunday at ikea and best buy and are - oh my god - getting hd cable!!! neither of us has paid for cable tv in our many years of renting. and the only reason we're getting it is because our reception here is shite for the four free channels we do watch. let's hope we can still get our money's worth.

as far as my shop, we made the draw for the holiday giveaway over the weekend and the official winner is jennifer judge. i'm still waiting to hear back from her... hopefully she will reply and i can send out her goodies for her to receive in time for christmas. there were 79 entries altogether and i'm truly thankful to all my buyers! as well, i'm still hoping to list some new items before the big day but time is a factor.

the new year will also bring a change for me, as i gave notice here the other day. my last day will be january 14 i believe. although i've had a blast meeting all the designers and getting the chance to sell my wares here, i think it's time to explore new things. my goal is to get into as many stores as possible, all over the world and also do more shows. so far, i've only really ever done smaller shows, or else have not had the "right" things at the right place. and i'd like to expand my products so look for new items on etsy, as that will be my test market now.

i'm off to do some work.

you know you're getting old when...

2007-11-23T21:30:04Z

two beers the night before leaves you hungover for most of the day.
i'm still groggy and sleepy and i must say that the one holiday show i partook in last night was not as profitable as i'd hoped. the traffic was minimal - at least for my types of buyers - and the weather did not help, but you never really know until you do shows at least once. on the upside it was a chance to hang out with matt, who actually stayed and helped me all evening and i also got to chitchat with various other crafters.

i debuted some brand new change purses and tote bags, most of which will be going here tomorrow. i'm really happy with how they turned out and will post some pics soon. two sold last night and i hope they will all sell out for christmas!

oh yeah, i got my hair cut this afternoon and though it's not exactly how i pictured it, i just like the fact that it's different than usual. and no more split ends... at least for a little while hopefully :)

i'm off to unpack my shop stock... though i should really start packing soon!

t minus 9 days...

2007-11-20T05:01:22Z

suki on mattress
Originally uploaded by sukibaby

we move in t minus 9 days and neither matt nor i have started packing. he thinks it will only take him a day to pack all his stuff (ha!). personally, i think i will need a week. not that either of us have that much stuff, since we've become accustomed to lightening our load with each move, but now that we're moving into a more permanent place (for at least 2 years, hopefully) i want to declutter so we can start "fresh" so to speak.

sometime this week i hope to get my hair lopped off too. not extreme extreme but probably shoulder length. something to get rid of my damaged ends.

thursday i will be doing my only holiday show of this season. it's taking place at a restaurant called fire on the eastside, on yonge and gloucester from 6 pm - 10 pm, i think. all my prep work is happening in the next few days. i hope i sell a lot... to make up for my sad october sales, pretty much across the board (in canadian and u.s shops). if i hadn't gotten those few wholesale orders, i would have been in a sorry state right now.

at least etsy seems to be picking up for me for the holiday season, i guess. i finally hit 500 sales the other week. woo hoo!

on that note, i'm off to catch some zzz's.

oh, dear.

2007-11-08T18:30:44Z

this medication that i take from time to time is making my head spin and my tummy nauseous. yuck! it sucks that i have to wait an hour to eat after i take the pills and if there's dairy in my meal, then 2 hours before and after! i know it's because my stomach is empty that i'm reacting to the meds today, so it's just a matter of waiting another 10 minutes before eating. but it doubly sucks since most foods that i love have dairy in them.
i think i will sit in front of the computer for the next little bit before moving again...

what's new?

2007-11-06T04:03:06Z

holiday gift tags in the sun
Originally uploaded by sukibaby

i feel like i am always a step behind at this time of year. when the holiday season rolls around, i have so many grand plans of new things to make and sell and also to give as gifts. but the time seems to fly by so quickly. yes, it is only the beginning of november, but really, i probably should have had all my christmas items ready by the end of summer... if i was super organized and had nothing else on my plate. hopefully next year i can be more on top of my game!

really, i'm a little embarrassed at how long these portraits took me:

not because they were so complex and detailed that i was spending hours and hours painting them, but simply because my time management skills still need to be honed. at any rate, i had fun painting these girls and their mom, who commissioned the portraits was very understanding about the turnaround time. another fun thing is that the girls knew that their portraits were being painted, so it was nice to hear feedback from them too, during the whole process. they seem like they're a sweet little family. i'm told when the youngest daughter is older (she's still under a year) she will get a portrait done of her as well... hopefully by me :)

i've still got another couple of portraits to finish in the next little while and one holiday show to prepare for. new stuff will appear soon here and here. no packing will be done until after the 22nd of this month, that's for sure!

the stockings were hung by the chimney with care...

2007-11-01T15:04:19Z

stocking hanging
Originally uploaded by sukibaby

can you tell i'm an eager beaver and that christmas is my favourite holiday? it's not even a whole day after halloween and i've listed holiday stuff in my shop. only one card so far, but there will be more coming in the next few weeks.

plus i'm super excited about the holiday giveaway that i've got going on. this is the first one of what will hopefully become an annual tradition and i decided to do this because i want to give back to my customers. so in the spirit of giving, for every $5 spent in my shop this month you will receive one entry into the draw. on december 1st i will make the draw and the lucky winner gets all the goodies pictured below:

Prize pack includes the following items, worth over $100:
- 1 short sleeve tee of your choice (bad kitty, crafty kitty, clever kitty or pirate kitty)
- 1 clever kitty tote
- 5 holiday cards
- 1 Suki & Ants 10-pk. of postcards
- 1 I Miss You 5-pk. of postpards
- 1 set of 11 holiday gift tags
- 1 xmas kitties button set
- 1 lucky kitties button set
- 1 clever kitty magnet set
- 1 pirate kitty magnet set (of two)
- 6 assorted individual buttons
- 1 pair of lovebirds stickers

So hopefully there will be more than one buyer this month, so he/she doesn't just win by default :)

I'll end this post with a photo of our funny and furry ones:

learning to read the fine print

2007-10-28T21:41:11Z

crap! i just realized (thanks to matt) that it's not the end of daylight savings time this week, but next. my calendar says that it is today, but in brackets, it says "old". the new changeover happens next week, but stupidly, my computer changed time today! the vcr clock did too. but matt's computer and cell phone said otherwise... so, basically i've lost an hour today because i thought i could sleep in. grumble. oh well.

today has been relatively productive despite my time ignorance. stocked up on some supplies at staples and got caught in a mild hailstorm on the way home. thankfully i wore my parka and was warm and cozy. on the way to staples i thought i was being followed by a pretty white pigeon, but i think it must have been coincidence.

yesterday was the memorial service for matt's (maternal) grandmother in new brunswick. sadly, she passed away earlier this week. matt would have liked to have gone but his work schedule kept him busy this weekend. the service sounded like it was very lovely though and at least the rest of his family and many many relatives were there to pay their respects.

saturday evening post

2007-10-28T01:26:14Z

funky finds feature
Originally uploaded by sukibaby

i always mean to write on here more frequently but find that it takes longer than i would like - because i want to have photos to accompany my blurbs - so i put it off. and then i forget all the super fascinating thoughts that go through my head and want to write about so eloquently for all my readers... yeah right.
well, i was flattered and fortunate to be featured on funky finds this past week. any bit of press is lovely, especially when it's unexpected and the writer is nice enough to let me know about it.

things are pretty much settled with our loft and we'll be moving earlier than expected. yay! matt and i are both pumped to get in there and make it home sweet home.

i'm gearing up for the one holiday show i'll be doing this year and am hoping to have some new bags and coin purses ready for it. and i'm trying to get some new christmas items done in time to list in my shop for the start of november but have just been pleasantly bombarded with a few wholesale orders. i have a special holiday giveaway planned for customers, but have several other things on the go, soi'm wondering if i'll get my act together in time. hopefully!

here's one of the most recent portraits i completed:

thank goodness for my very patient customers. i swear, if i don't have a deadline given to me, i am the worst at completing projects. even when i do have a deadline, i tend to cut it very close.

so on that note, i'm going to spend the rest of my saturday evening doing shop stuff. happy weekend to all!

a place to call home...

2007-10-15T00:00:31Z

a masterpiece
Originally uploaded by sukibaby

well, after nearly 15 years of renting about 20 different locations (and about 20 years for matt), i am SO thrilled to say that we will be moving into a place of our own in just over two months! our offer was good and even though our real estate agent wasn't able to bargain down as much as seemed to want to for us, we still paid less than the asking price.

we must have looked at more than a dozen places and from the moment i saw the photos for this place online, i was intent on getting this property. that's kind of the way it worked when i got suki. saw her photo online and was hooked. our appointment to present the offer was pushed back yesterday though, as the owners had scheduled an open house in the afternoon, and i guess wanted to wait to see if they'd get more offers. i think we were the first to look at the place a few nights previous and thankfully we didn't end up having to get into a bidding war.

i also thought it was a good sign that a) the owners had a cat and b) we had the same cat dish as them.

and this new place to call home would not have been possible without the generosity of my parents, as well as the time and effort put forth by our real estate agent.

some things i'm so looking forward to:
- being able to set up and decorate the interior, painting walls if we want, though the upstairs already looks so awesome, we probably will leave it as is
- being able to take a bubble bath
- the dishwasher/lifesaver!
- not having to leave our unit to do laundry! hallelujah!
- buying new (grown-up) furniture
- not having to lug our bikes up and down the stairs, since we're on the first floor!
- a working oven!

this is our cool kitchen:

we did compromise on a few things:
- although we were intent on finding a place in the west end (we are quite partial to the west), this loft is in the east end. still pretty close to downtown though, which was the most important
- there's only one bathroom, which we've managed with for years now, but of course, my parents are thinking of when they visit and ahem, kids, perhaps? matt and i are most likely going to expand the existing one a little

a funny thing that happened on our final day of house hunting was that i ran into someone i knew from sheridan college, a fellow illustrator. she was considering the same place as us, not the one we ended up getting, but i guess it showed we had similar tastes... or price ranges :)

i think a pretty common thing to all the places we looked at is that they were all cat friendly. this cutie belonged to the owners of home-to-be.

so now, with the relief of having found a property finally, maybe i can concentrate on work again. still have several custom portraits to do and believe it or not, some revisions to the children's book i thought was finished already. we'll see how long it takes me to deal with that :)

house hunt over?

2007-10-12T21:14:47Z

excitement is in the air as i think we may have found our new home! we're going to make an offer tomorrow morning, so i will write more once i know more. pictures to follow :)

taking time out...

2007-10-09T15:17:04Z

front entrance
Originally uploaded by sukibaby

i'm so behind on several custom portraits, but could not resist taking advantage of the hot weather yesterday. especially after matt suggested a bike ride and ice cream! and these days, a day spent with my sweetie is a treat in itself, so we biked down to the lakeshore and enjoyed a day off of work. or at least several hours. we almost o'ded on our double scoop waffle cones.

just how hot it got was a bit disturbing for october, but the weather seems to be all over the place these days. the previous day was pretty chilly and we went house hunting or rather loft hunting. the tiptop lofts was definitely top notch, and matt and i were considering trying to get the place we looked at there, but in the end decided it was not the ideal property for us. although the high ceilings were amazing, the space itself was not spacious enough, especially for the price they were asking for. so i'm trying to be patient and hopeful that the right place will come along eventually.

our thanksgiving dinner was had at the keg. another rare treat for us. and talk about meat lover's haven! i expected some sort of veggies to come with our entrees, but it was just meat and potatoes. yummy, of course, but guess that's how they make money there.

the one portrait i have finished is a christmas present, so i hesitate to post a picture of it, especially on flickr since the recipient has an account there. so in the meantime, here's the latest photo of suki and dex. suki seems like she's in full recovery now and both cats have been feeling rather frisky, chasing each other around every morning. here they are in a more relaxed state...

i'll be back with photos of wip and new things later in the week.