Loving Love.

My sister is currently on route to New Zealand (because of this). I am so incredibly excited for her and proud of her for taking such a chance for love. Still, everyone who knows Jen and Ed are pretty positive it's a safe bet.

I did really well yesterday saying good-bye to her. I barely cried and only left her with two minutes of older sister advice. And then I was on Facebook and saw this message from Ed:

Farewell my friends, I gotta go see about a girl...

Instant tears. And I'm crying again just typing this. Once a sap, always a sap.

Bon Jour Paris.

The Hidden Hotel via Remodelista.

Recently, I've been itching to go to Paris...the fashion, the romance, the bread, cheese and wine, the macarons, the shopping (you get the idea)! I suppose it'll have to wait til after my spring trip to New York City and Thanksgiving trip to New Zealand (fingers tightly crossed). But once Chris and I finally make it to the "City of Light," I hope to stay here. Something about staying in a comfortable and calming hotel after long days and evenings exploring the city seems to call my name. And the fact that it's on the rue de l’Arc de Triomphe doesn't hurt either.

Maybe Jen and Ed will move to Paris next?!? I take that back...I want them in San Franciso with me!

Checking In.

Cheerio! (My sister is dating a Brit so I feel that I'm allowed to say that...and also add u's where they aren't needed as in colour or flavour.)

Anyway, I just wanted to check in and let you know I'm alive and breathing. I'm not really sleeping much. I took a personal day today to do other work. I love taking vacation time to work. Isn't that grand?

If the lighting was better (and using my flash didn't give me hives), I'd show you what I was up to today. Let's just say I've printed individually numbered, two sided tickets, cut them all out by hand and given each one four nice rounded corners. I know there are some of you that will appreciate the hell this was. For the other ones, it's taken 12 hours to make 90 tickets. 12 hours! It's a pain in the ass (sorry for the language but it's 12:37 and I need to wake up in less than 5 hours). Oh, and I still have 30 to go. Sweet!

But it'll all be worth it, right? It will. I know it will. The tickets look amazing. The vinyl is getting cut right now. Saturday will be glorious!

Thanks for letting me vent. And if you were curious, this is exactly what happens when bloggers have too little sleep and a glass or two of wine.

Family.

Me (age 7), Jen (age 6 months?) and Jer (age 4). Yep, my parents were nice enough to start all of our names with J. Luckily, the creepiness of that has been usurped by the Duggars.

I am incredibly blessed to have a brother and sister that I not only love (due to familial obligation), but I truly like and enjoy. My brother is the smartest funny guy I know. He works as a mechanical engineer and I could try to tell you what he does, but I would fail. He's that guy that everyone loves, and it's not just because he's a mean chef. My sister is a world traveling, Spanish speaking, History Channel watching, sarcastic lass. She's also my best friend and my biggest fan. I love them both so much.

Yep, this pretty much sums up my family (well, in 2002).

And if it's not obvious, all of this is a testament to my incredible mother who raised three kids by herself for most of our lives. I will never grasp how difficult it must have been or how much she sacrificed, but I know that the three of us are who we are today because of it. I love you mom!

I think this was 1992. We probably listened to "Ice Ice Baby" as we got ready for the first day of school that year.

Man, I'm seeming incredibly sentimental this week (and I'm not even PMSing), but in this crazy world it's so nice to realize how unbelievably lucky you are to have amazing people in your life. It makes me happy.

A Love Story.

From Simon Waterhouse.

At the end of this year, my younger (and only) sister will be moving far, far away to New Zealand. This makes me unbelievably excited for her, but sad for me. When I tell people new to her story about the move, this is usually how the conversation goes:

Oh, that's so cool! So, is she moving for school or work?
No, for love.
How sweet! Wow, how did she meet someone from New Zealand?
Well, actually he's from England.
Um, okay. So, did they meet in the US or in England?
Neither. They met in Spain.
Huh?

Confusing, right? Here's the quick rundown. Three years ago, Jen studied abroad in Madrid (Alcalá de Henares to be exact). Before starting classes, she spent two weeks traveling around Spain with my brother and friends. On her first day there, she met Ed, a young Brit who was traveling on holiday. Ed liked Jen and Jen liked Ed, but my brother was initially not so keen on the kid who kept his younger sister out all night and into the next morning. (Don't worry...Ed has now received the "Older Brother Stamp of Approval.")

Jen and Ed's phone conversations, emails and trips to visit each other led to them falling crazy in love. And even though she had to return to school in Tucson, their relationship continued to grow. Eventually, she made the decision to move to Manchester to be with Ed. Unfortunately, her visa expired after 6 months and she had to return to Arizona. Now, fifteen months later (and many long 14 hour flights to see each other), they are more in love than ever, but silly immigration laws make life together very difficult. After exhaustive research (and many frustrated tears), they discovered that they can spend a whole year in New Zealand to start their lives together!

From André Pipa

Now, we all know that the easy solution would be marriage, but they are young (she's 24 and he is 22) and smart and want to be 150% sure (rather than the 145% sure they are right now). Still, they both know that if and when they decide to get married, they have the full support of their family and friends. Their love story is pretty amazing and the fact that they've managed to make it through their college years on separate continents while growing into people they continue to adore is pretty much mind blowing.

As much as I hate having my sister live so far away, there are definitely worse reasons to move around the world than for love. And I have to admit that she makes pretty good choices about where she lives. She made for a great excuse to visit Spain and now she's a very compelling reason to visit New Zealand.

(Click on the image below to go to my flickr favorites to be able to see each individual photo.)

P.S. If any readers in New Zealand have any advice about where to live, what to see, etc., definitely drop me a line!

Mind Your P's and Q's.

My sister has studied Spanish forever (which equates to like 9 years when you are only 24 years old). She has had to take every Spanish language, literature and linguistics class under the sun. And now she loves learning more about words and their origins. She once spent the good part of an hour explaining how the word for star has become a part of tons of other words since stars have always been something to which man has looked (it was much more interesting then I'm making it sound, I swear).

Now I, on the other hand, love letters and more importantly, the fonts that make up letters (like LOVE letters). When I'm doing a design project, I could spend hours combing through thousands of fonts just to find the perfect typeface. I'm a very visual person, such a blessing and a curse, so this search usually involves me looking for a precise G with the proper amount of flourish and grandiosity that I've imagined in my head.

I also have a major predilection towards fonts that look hand lettered, but not in the 21st century, graffiti, handwritten sort of way. I like my fonts to look imperfect like hand painted window signs or wood block prints. So, I went to my favorite free font resource, www.dafont.com (a great find thanks to Emily B.), to pull up some examples of my preferred fonts. Although all of these images were designed as a mere showcase of how the font can be used, I'm totally tempted to blow them up and frame them in my house. Perhaps I'll make a hall of letters. I swoon.

Cacavia01.


Today.


Cancan de Bois.


Vive la Rivoluzione.


HVD Bodedo.


Lietz Lindau Hamburg.


Kasikorn.

Pride.

When I was a freshman in high school, I learned that one of my dearest uncles was dying of AIDS and that he was gay. He had been living with AIDS for ten years and with his homosexuality his whole life, yet he never told his family until he was sick. He was raised in a strong Catholic family, and I know that largely influenced his decision. It broke my heart to see that a man I loved so dearly felt the needed to hide such a large part of himself from us. I wish he would have known for all those years that none of us could have loved him any less because regardless of being gay or straight, he was still my Uncle Mark. Thankfully, he died knowing that to be true.

I went to watch the Pride Parade yesterday with my mother-in-law. As soon as it started I was overcome with emotion. It made my heart happy to know that even though my uncle (like countless others) may not have always had the support of his family, he had an amazing community of friends who loved and cherished him as he was. I am proud to live in a city that continually embraces those that may be shunned in other places (I just wish the state as a whole would get with the program). The parade was beautiful and inspiring. And while there is still along journey ahead, I couldn't help but feel the pride yesterday.

More photos here.*

* Photos made possible by multiple generous gifts from my kick ass brother. Are you happy now, Jer?