I will have some of my pastel paintings hanging at the Hope Valley Bottle Shop (4711 Hope Valley Rd in Durham, NC) for the next few months and tomorrow night (Tuesday) there will be an artist’s reception and free wine tasting from 5-7pm.

Eric and I will be there, so if you are local, feel free to stop in and try whatever great wines Thomas and Drew have picked out, see some of my artwork in person, and say hello.  :)

Hopefully, we won’t be snowed in because the weather people are predicting 1-3 inches of snow tomorrow and with few salt/sand trucks to go around, we may have to reschedule!

I have been painting a few hours a day when I’ve been home because I have five commissioned dog portraits to complete before we leave on Christmas holiday. I am effectively doubling the amount of commissioned work I’ve completed, ever, this month! Here is what my studio looks like at the moment…

I have three paintings about 60% done and two more to start. And yes, I am very much enjoying all of the painting time.

Last month I received a call from a woman who found my Pups in Pastel site and wanted to know if I could do a portrait of her little dog Millie who had passed away a few weeks earlier.

Of course, I said yes.

I finished the painting on Tuesday afternoon and dropped it off on Wednesday morning. It was pretty emotional but she absolutely loved it and mentioned that she had a few friends that will be contacting me for dog portraits. I really enjoyed working on this pastel painting and I’m glad I was able to give her a beautiful memento of her dog.

A couple weeks ago, I was asked to come back and do a second art demonstration of my pastel dog portraits at Jerry’s Artarama in Raleigh. This time I did not have a family camping out at my table and chatting me up for three hours, so I was able to almost complete this portrait during the demo time.

This is Katie, Eric’s aunt Pam’s beautiful, sweet (and clever) golden retriever. I’ve actually seen her sneakily wolf down a half wheel of brie at Christmas.

I received a generous gift certificate for both demos and I spent nearly all of the first one on new pastels, some for this painting.

I am currently finishing up a commissioned portrait for a woman whose dog passed away a month ago, so hopefully I’ll have photos of Millie up soon.

I have a lot of exciting things coming up this fall in terms of meetings and conferences, so to go along with this enthusiasm, I decided to rebuild the LeGa Design Group site in Drupal. Extra added benefit of learning Drupal and more about css code in the process.

Check it out and let me know what you think! :)

We were invited to spend the afternoon with about 15 other mini schnauzers for a Memorial Day cookout, and we couldn’t turn down the opportunity to let Riesling off leash in a fenced backyard.

Did I mention the 15 other schnauzers?

To tire her out a bit we took a long walk around the North Carolina Museum of Art campus to take in some outdoor sculpture, like Gyre by Thomas Sayre.

Riesling was pretty tired afterwards, so we took a quick break in the shady Lowe’s Pavilion.

Thanks to our trackstick and Google Earth, I know we walked 1.7 miles.

With a panting schnauzer in the backseat, we continued up to North Raleigh for the party. North Carolina Schnauzer Rescue volunteers Eve and Bob hosted the cookout with generous amounts of food and libations.

Of course, there was a lot of excitement with each new arrival…

Riesling behaved herself quite well and managed to be far away from most of the scuffles while looking angelic.

It’s always interesting to see all of the different schnauzer personalities, including Kayla, an absolute sweetie who is available for adoption, check out her profile here.

The title of this post was going to be “cheeseburgers from heaven” when I had thought about writing it a few weeks ago. But it’s Mother’s Day today and the fact that I’ve been without mine for almost two years now hurts just a little more this weekend.

I had been thinking about my mom a lot one morning and on the way to drop off pup at the groomers, I turned on the radio instead of the usual CD. The next song played was “Cheeseburger in Paradise” by Jimmy Buffet, which I haven’t heard in years. I can’t say I like Jimmy Buffet all that much but I somehow know every single word from many of his popular songs thanks to my parents, specifically my mom. She always wanted to have a cheeseburger in a town called Paradise (there is one in Florida near I-75!) but we never made the detour on our many roadtrips together.

I found myself belting out the chorus with the windows open and just then, hearing that song at that moment, felt like a penny from heaven.

(Ryan, my dad, Lauren, me, and my mom in Oklahoma, probably 1984)

On a brighter note, I happen to be lucky enough to have three other women to celebrate this mother’s day—my gram, Tess, Eric’s mom, Susan, and my step-mom, Lynn. Having all of them in my life has made the loss more bearable.

Thank you all and Happy Mother’s Day.

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. :)

Considering we have only four years of high school German between the two of us, it was a good thing the transportation system in Zurich was so easy to follow. Even though we were only there for two days, we each bought a 72 hour ZurichCard that allowed us unlimited transportation on all the city trams, travel to and from the airport, a 90 minute cruise on Lake Zurich, and a train ride west to Uteliburg to fantastic views of the surrounding countryside.

The ZurichCard was 34CHF or about $30 and we used it constantly, taking advantage of many of the benefits in the short time we had. For example, while we don’t typically mind a lot of walking, it was February, windy, we only had two days and frankly, didn’t want to spend them getting from site to site, even in a small city. The ease of tram travel in Zurich was incredible. We never had to wait more than a few minutes and maps were posted everywhere. Interestingly, the trams and trains work on an honor system and I kept ours handy even though we were never once asked to show a ticket.

The ZurichCard also gets you free entrance into a whole slew of museums, but we only had time for one, the Kunsthaus.

Matisse, Chagall, Picasso, Dali, Monet, DaVinci… the collections in this place were stunning. Additionally, the special exhibit of fashion photography by Steichen was an unexpected highlight. You simply have to go here if you find yourself in Zurich.

We also took a ferry trip to several points along Lake Zurich and while it was nice to sit and watch the scenery go by, this trip would be much nicer in warmer weather. We froze.

Also a chilly trek, but stunning nonetheless, was the train ride to Uteliburg and subsequent hike to see the city from above.

Those aren’t clouds in the distance, folks, those are the Swiss Alps with Lake Zurich winding south in the foreground.

In short, we probably would have done a number of these things without the ZurichCard, but we eliminated the need to constantly buy and validate tram and train passes. If you add up the cost of all these activities, the card more than paid for itself in just two days, which made it completely worth it for us.

We had nothing to do with this. honest. ;)