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. ;)

For Christmas, we got two sets of these. I originally saw them over here. And all these lovely photos are posted here. :)

Yes, our bedroom walls are bright purple.

We’ve been a bit absent from posting the past two weeks, mostly because we’ve been very busy. Here’s what we’ve been up to:

• Leandra has gone “official” with her creative and web design business, having obtained a business license, bank account and business credit card, and is now doing business as LeGa Design Group. More importantly, she’s working on several projects. Plus, she sold a painting (thanks Beverly and Chris!)
• I’m still in the midst of my academic job search. At this point all my applications are submitted, I’ve had several interviews, and I’ve got a few more interviews coming in the near future.
• Planning our travels for 2008—between now and July we’re traveling to Zürich, Switzerland; San Diego, CA; Tampa, FL; Denver, CO; and Barcelona, Spain. We’re very excited :) On the travel note, we definitely want to highlight Kayak.com, our airfare and hotel search tool of choice at the moment.

This evening we spent some time looking at works by Monet and others at the North Carolina Museum of Art. We prefer to go to these special exhibitions on Member Mondays when it’s not nearly as crowded.

While the Impressionism movement is not my favorite (we saw several dozen works by Monet last year), I can appreciate the style. I had two favorites. “The End of the Working Day” by Breton was incredible in person. The canvas is massive and the intense light of the sun and detailed shade was magnificent. This photo, frankly, doesn’t do it justice.

My other favorite was “On the Heights” by Curran. The play of light and darks in the girl’s faces is lovely and I really like the paint strokes in the sky.

This past Saturday, pup and I attended SchnOctoberFest to support the wonderful folks who made Riesling’s rescue possible. This year I donated a custom pet portrait as a raffle prize and I was delighted to see a whole bunch of tickets in my tupperware container. :)

(I actually won the raffle right next to mine!)

We also entered the longest ears contest and Riesling took first prize among the schnauzers. Measuring her was a bit of a challenge, but we determined her ears to be four inches long!

Not only did we have a lovely time reconnecting with everyone from the rescue, including her foster mom, Kathleen, but we won raffle prizes as well. Eric and I have a free movie and dinner to look forward to and pup has a variety of new toys… including a florescent orange gecko that she has very much taken to.

(Photo taken by the lovely Rhonda) 

Today while Eric and his parents were scoping out the farmer’s market, I spent an hour sweating in the hot sun painting with chalk on the ground for groundSPARK, a street painting festival in downtown Raleigh.

There was supposedly a record number of participants and it was certainly crowded enough!

Here I am demonstrating my flexibility by adding more highlights to Riesling’s eyebrows while not stepping all over my painting. :)

See the finished product on Flickr!

Although I was absolutely soaked by the end, I had a wonderful time and we saw a lot of beautiful works.

It made the beer sampler at the Flying Saucer even more earned. :)

So, I mentioned a week ago that I decided to donate a custom portrait to the schnauzer rescue fundraiser in a few weeks. I also decided to have business cards made up with my latest painting…

I plan to give these out at the dog park, my dog groomers, my vet, and at the schnauzer meetups. With any luck (and some perseverance), I’ll have some more dogs to paint!

Please spread the word, there’s more info and pricing information here.

Also, visit my art blog to see the process behind the toy fox terrier, Haus, painting.