Today I got an email with all our French Open tickets attached! Hooray!

The first thing I did was translate the entire ticket since it’s in French and I needed to know why all the tickets have my name on them when they clearly show an illustration of someone checking IDs. Turns out I just have to change the names online and they will be registered correctly in the computer when the ticket is scanned. Check.

My next challenge was to find a good seating chart so I know where we’ll be sitting. Apparently, the organizers for Roland Garros have something against straightforward information about just where exactly your seats are. I could only find zone colors, no mention of the other qualification, OB/NB, on the tickets.

After looking all over the official website and various other ticketing aggregators, I decided to just make my own seating chart (hopefully helping out a few other folks) combined from several maps I found.

Behold!

So now I know where our tickets are!

(Here you go, Mom.)

June 2, 2008 (2 men’s singles/1 men’s doubles) – OB, Row 20, Seats 4, 6, 8, 10
June 3, 2008 (1 men’s singles/2 women’s singles) – NB, Row 5, Seats 60, 62, 64, 66

It’s spring again and that means another year of trying to score an heirloom sungold tomato plant from Craig and Susan LeHoullier. We got started too late last Saturday and by the time we arrived at 11am, they were sold out. Since I didn’t feel like driving out to their house in North Raleigh during the week, I was determined to arrive early enough this morning.

Now, I get up every morning around 7am to take the dog out and give her breakfast. Then she crawls back into bed with me and snoozes for a few hours while I work on my laptop. This morning, however, we left right after breakfast.

This is how she looked on the way to Raleigh…

I think pup was missing her morning nap.

We pulled in at 8am sharp and I am happy to report that I am now the proud owner of a tiny sungold tomato plant. It joins the Tiger Tom heirloom variety that we purchased last week.

They may be little now, but look what happened last year. :)

(Did I really say that I would only buy one tomato plant this year? Whoops!)

In other garden-related news, we will not have to buy any herbs this year, as illustrated by this photo that Eric took this morning.

This is what the deck box looked like just a year ago.

At first I wasn’t sure if I should post a business-related q&a on our personal blog, but then again, I spend most of my day working so you may as well know what the heck that actually means for me. Right?

Questions courtesy of the lovely marketing-mistress, Naomi, over at IttyBiz, one of my favorite small-business blogs. (Be careful, it can be a little raunchy over there. But in a good way.)

What’s your game? What do you do?

Website design. Graphic design. Blog design. I design stuff.

My favorite projects involve building websites from the ground up. I love organizing content and turning it into something functionally beautiful.

Why do you do it? Do you love it, or do you just have one of those creepy knacks?

I spent many years attempting to be creative in a university setting, taking on side projects and volunteering for more work when it was “interesting.” Finally, I realized that my freelance work was much more satisfying than my day job, so I quit. I’ve been running my own company for several months now and I love it. Love it.

I still can’t believe I am making the same, if not more, money working from home, doing something I adore. I am very, very lucky. Oh, and talented. Obviously.

Who are your customers? What kind of people would need or want what you offer?

My customers are individuals and organizations with a desire to have a space of their own online but are lacking a means or direction to do so. I am often approached with something like, “Hey, I was thinking about getting my (insert idea here) up online but I have no web experience and I’m not sure what I need, can you help?” Yes! Yes I can.

I also do quite a bit of design work with a marketing consultant for non-profits. (Check Elizabeth out, I just redesigned her website!) We’ve recently worked on various print materials including business cards, brochures, mailings and magazine ads as well as websites with data-base driven features like blogs and galleries. She’s constantly pushing me to learn more things by volunteering me for stuff I’ve never done before.

What’s your marketing USP? Why should I buy from you instead of the other losers?

I’m nice and friendly!

While that might not make me unique, per say, I would argue that it goes a long way in a working relationship. I like to talk, sure, but I also enjoy listening to what you have to say about yourself and your business. Getting a good idea about you helps greatly when it comes time for me to design something to represent you. It’s that simple. Let me know what you have in mind and I will get back to you with a summary of the plan, a timeline, and a price breakdown.

What’s next for you? What’s the big plan?

I’d like to take on some smaller independent clients (for fun!) and continue picking up larger non-profit organization clients (for profit!). Within two years, I’d like to be in a position to support my family. That sound you hear? It’s Eric cheering. :)

We went to a schnauzer meetup this afternoon in Cary (NC) – Riesling burned some energy and we enjoyed the sunshine!

I previously wrote about how long we were going to have to wait before we found out if we actually got the French Open tickets we bought registered in advance for last November.

Well, the wait is over!

On Saturday, after Eric discovered a large charge on our credit card, we realized that the ticket purchase must have gone through. I logged into the Roland Garros site and happily found that the tickets we were issued were just what we wanted. Four tickets for the Suzanne Lenglen court, zone red (the best!), for both June 2 & 3!

This meant that we needed to scramble to buy plane tickets from Barcelona to Paris (we had to wait on this part as plane tickets are never refundable, at least the kind we buy) and find a hotel, mere weeks before our arrival. We made out fine, thankfully, so now I get to figure how much of Paris we can realistically see in the four days we’ll be there, minus the two dedicated to tennis, of course.

Expect lots of photos of us covered in red dust from Paris. :)

Friday was beautiful here in NC- 80 degrees and sunny- so we headed over to the Duke Botanical Gardens in the afternoon. They have a number of raised beds filled with tulips in the spring and this year we seemed to visit right around their peak.

and irises too

The garden allows dogs so Riesling got to strut her new haircut (and pink bandanna) around the grounds.

As usual, she got a lot of smiles and comments from folks. She’s not used to heat yet so she was panting heavily; of course, this didn’t slow her down too much, though she did stretch out on the cool futon when she got home.

More pics can be seen on our flickr pages.

We canceled our trip up to West Virginia this weekend because of a cold front bringing both chilly weather and rain. Not exactly great hiking weather.

So!

We decided to take a little time this morning to clear out some glassware that we haven’t been using to make room in our kitchen cabinet for our growing pint glass collection.

That is a lot of glassware for just two people!

We have 41 pint glasses (only a few are duplicates) but are always adding more as we visit breweries all over the country. Embarrassingly, we don’t have more than four of any type of wine glasses. And we love wine. Sorry, future guests! :)

Here are the shelves all organized and neat. Ahhh.

This effort led me to reorganize both pantries, another cabinet and one lazy susan. (Not you, mom!) Pictures of these are even less interesting than the ones above and have been omitted. :)

We entered this photo of Riesling ‘grinning’ into the Snapfish Funny Pets contest.

Voting is open all week, so head on over and give our pup five stars… you have until the end of the day on Sunday, April 13th!

The original story behind this photo can be found here.

I found out last week that due to circumstances beyond her control, a friend of mine could not attend a chocolate class she had signed up for weeks ago. There was no opportunity for a refund so she asked if I would go instead (and report back with recipes and notes, of course).

I had never attended a Southern Season cooking class before, so I didn’t know what to expect. It turns out that this was not a hands-on class, but more of a classroom style setting; in fact, I felt like I was witnessing the taping of a cooking show. Thankfully, the chef, Nick Malgieri, was entertaining and insightful when it came to preparing a few chocolate treats, involving the audience whenever possible.

It also helped that we were plied with generous pours of both tawny port and cream sherry during the two-hour class. Wheee!

Recipes included:

• Cocoa Nib Brownies (absolutely sinful)
• Devilsfood Bombe (light and creamy, delicious)
• Chocolate Walnut Tart Scented with Orange (too orangey, but lovely texture and crust)
• Lemon Scented Chocolate Macaroons (sticky and good)
• Loretta’s Chocolate Cake (crusty top, warm interior with semi-sweet flavor)

I learned a few new tricks and penned copious notes and additional details to the recipes for my friend (and for me!)

The classes are pricey, although not outrageously so; I think they would make an excellent gift. :)

I have been playing around on Facebook for a few months now but Eric has resisted until recently. You’d be surprised as to how much effort it takes to be recognized as ‘in a relationship’ with someone. Eric had to approve me twice and I was given the option of canceling the relationship.

Once Eric approved me he was given the following notification. Thankfully, he had no other relationship requests. :)

Come say hi! Leandra | Eric