Friday LOL (food edition):

What's Good at Trader Joe's?

It's no secret that I love me some Trader Joe's. I started shopping there years ago, when their prices were super duper cheap. Nowadays they're still a bargain, but with food costs rising everywhere, it's not quite like the old days. But I continue to go back: the employees are awesome, I can do a week's worth of shopping in 20 minutes, and--best of all--the food? Well, it rocks. And apparently, I'm not the only one who thinks so:

Hello. My name's Nathan, and I love Trader Joe's. My wife Sonia does, too. She's a great shopper, has excellent taste, and knows good value when she comes across it. As many of you know, Trader Joe's is unsurpassed in the world of good-value grocery stores, so we spend a lot of our time and money there. Although the store fairly consistently delivers great taste with its own unique line of food products, there are definitely some big-hits, and unfortunately, there are some misses...

After doing a couple of internet searches for reviews of TJ's food items, Sonia discerned an apparent dearth of good, quality reviews for the store's offerings. So, at her suggestion, we decided to embark on a journey of systematically reviewing every Trader Joe's product, resulting in the blog you are about to read...

It's a great site--obviously much thought and care goes into each review, which is awesome. But I think my most favorite part is that I stumbled upon the site just as they reviewed the Wild Blueberry Vanilla Chèvre, which played a pretty big role in last night's all violet book club! And they gave it 9 out of 10 golden spoons (which I would completely agree with)!

So maybe this site didn't make me laugh out loud... but I think I love it just the same.

Book club:

Last night my book club met, and since I chose the book, I got to host. The book was the Violets of March, by Sarah Jio. Every time we meet we try and do a matching theme to our book (we also have a bottle of whipped cream vodka that comes to every meeting, but more on that later); but this one was challenging. The book itself took place in Seattle, and went back and forth between present day and the 1940s. There wasn't too much food in the book, and save for fish and coffee, I was stumped as far as Seattle foods went. So I got a little creative and decided to have a violet food theme. Blue corn chips, purple grapes, figs (or Fig Newtons in our case)... you get the idea. So I tweeted:



And Oh. Em. Gee. You guys, the author of the book tweeted back!



As my book club gals arrived, I told them the awesome news about my twitter conversation, and you know what? Sarah Jio not only live tweeted with us throughout the meeting, she BLOGGED about our little violet book club meeting(and called us trendsetters! Squeeeee!)! It completely reaffirmed my love of the Twitter.

We promised Sarah that we would tweet some pics to her; here we are toasting her with our blueberry creamcicles (sparkling blueberry juice and whipped cream vodka):



And here is our blue foods spread:


Purple grapes, Washington apples, brie, blueberries and chocolate covered blueberries, Fig Newtons, blue corn chips, hummus (that wasn't blue, but was delish!), and goldfish! Also, red velvet cupcakes for the red velvet diary in the book. Whoever thought of that is the honorary book club rocket scientist.


Cannolis with purple sprinkles? Yes please!

Book club is always a blast--we're such a diverse, fun group of girls--and so far we've picked a bunch of diverse, fun books, so I always look forward to a meeting. The fact that Sarah Jio was conversing with us all meeting long was the icing on the cake. I think the only way the meeting could have been topped is if she was there in real life (her living in Seattle, and having recently had a baby were just a few minor obstacles). But rest assured, next time she does a book tour on the east coast, I am SO there!

Email this:

The last week or so, I've noticed links to an Email Charter floating around the internets. What exactly is an Email Charter, you ask? Well, it might be my new favorite thing:

We're drowning in email. And the many hours we spend on it are generating ever more work for our friends and colleagues. We can reverse this spiral only by mutual agreement. Hence this Charter...

The Charter includes things like respect recipients' time; attack attachments; and slash surplus cc's. There are some days where I do feel like I'm drowning in email. Since I'm the only traciedesigns employee, I can't pass it off to anyone else to answer (or hand my work off so I can devote an entire day to responding to email). An Email Charter might not be the perfect solution, but when you're up to your eyeballs in email, it's a great start.

EOM/NNTR :)

Refreshed:

So last week I told you guys that I had split my days between work and play.

Well, late Friday afternoon, I turned my computer off, and I didn't turn it back on until this morning. And let me tell you--especially coming from someone who is tethered to her computer--it felt great. I'm sitting at my desk first thing Tuesday morning, and I don't feel stressed, I feel calm, and ready to take on my day.

I could have worked this weekend--lord knows I had plenty to do (fortunately no screaming deadlines), but I'm really trying hard to work on my work/life balance, and I think I got it right this weekend. It was a great mix of friends, beer, parties, kids, pools, beach and fireworks--I can't think of a better way to kick off summer.


(last night's gorgeous sunset as we waited for the fireworks)

Week off:

Sorry for the lack of posts this week, internet friends. This was the first full week of no school for my kids, and while the oldest and youngest had enough going on to keep them busy, the 7 year old (almost 8!) had a week of nada. To be fair, camp for her starts next week and continues for the rest of the summer, so I think 1 week of nothing was just fine.

But, she is 7 after all, and so boredom comes quick. We spent most of the week like this: let Mommy work in the morning, and we can do beach/playdates/whatever in the afternoon. She caught on quick.

So I haven't gone very far, friends; and I promise to be back starting next week... this week I just found myself with some sand between my toes (which was just fine by me).

Friday LOL:

Today's LOL isn't funny so much as it's cool: Dear Photograph.

Take a picture of a picture from the past in the present.

The site is a mix of funny ("Any idea where them dinosaur shorts are at?") and poignant ("Dad never took a picture of me, ever. Then I noticed his reflection in the glass"), with a lot of memories mixed in.

It reminds me of a photo of myself, taken at a local park when I was around 2 or 3. When my cousin was born 14 years later, he looked so much like me at that age that my mother took him to the same park and photographed him on the same rock. When my eldest was the same age, we did the same thing. The 7 year old got the same photo, and this fall, the intern will have her turn to sit on the rock. It's pretty cool to look at all of these photos and see the park's changes through the years (much like Dear Photograph).

Cooking with color:

I think I may have to find a new title for these types of recipe posts, because I have been cooking with the same palette of colors all year long.



Anywho. I love vegetables. And I especially love them in the summer, fresh from the garden. This "recipe" was made up one night when I was looking for an alternative pasta salad. I just tossed some veggies and pasta together, threw in some olive oil, and voila! Summer yumminess. This one is definitely a summer staple in our house.

Summertime Veggies and Pasta:
(please note that there are no amounts, as I don't really measure when I make this. The general rule of thumb is that I love veggies, so I try and do equal amounts veggies to pasta)

Cherry or grape tomatos
Any color pepper
Red onion
Capers
Fresh Basil
Pasta (brown rice pasta is yum with this--and normally I'm not a fan)
Olive oil
Salt

Chop up all your veggies into bite size pieces. Boil, and then cool, the pasta. Combine veggies, capers, basil and pasta. Add olive oil and salt, and mix. For extra spice, throw in a little hot pepper.

New work:

traciedesigns edition.

Back over the winter holidays, I decided that I was (finally!) going to bite the bullet and redesign my website. I was tired of the brown, I needed to update my work, and there was a lot I wanted to do differently. So January 1, I hung a "be back soon" sign on my site, and set out to work.

Then, clients started calling.

Being a 1-woman show, I couldn't exactly ask them to wait until I finished my site, so, as usual, my personal work got put on the back burner. For a loooooooonnnnnnngggggg time. I would revisit it every now and again, trying to tweak things here and there... but I never really felt like it was finished enough to go live.

Well I don't know if it was prolonged sun exposure from the weekend or what, but I (finally!) bit the bullet last night and decided that I was just going to put up what I had--because lord knows that's better than a "be back soon" message--and tweak things along the way. And once it went up last night, I realized that there wasn't very much to tweak.

So ladies and gentlemen of the internet, I present to you the all new traciedesigns (version 3.0 if you're counting). I really feel that this site reflects my design style so much better than the last one did. I hope you all love it as much as I do!

Day off:

The 25th anniversary of the release of Ferris Bueller's Day Off was this past weekend. Let's just let that sit for a moment, eh? 25 years ago, FBDO was released. 25. Years.

Yikes.

I remember seeing this movie in the theater (which I guess is a sign of getting older--sigh)! I remember staying during the credits to the very end. To this day I can't hear Yello's Oh Yeah without thinking Rooney eats it. Of course, I can't hear the Beatles' Twist and Shout without thinking of Ferris hamming it up on a parade float, either.

So of course when I saw illustrator Max Dalton's version of a FBDO board game, I ate it up.



If this were available for purchase, I would buy it in a heartbeat; maybe for the fact that I will always--no matter what I'm doing--stop to watch FBDO because it's such a great movie, or maybe because the vintage-type illustrations are just plain awesome. Either way, win/win.

Work hard, be kind:

It starts off hysterical (natch), but towards the end, Conan O'Brien's commencement speech from Dartmouth is inspiring and awesome:

So, at the age of 47, after 25 years of obsessively pursuing my dream, that dream changed. For decades, in show business, the ultimate goal of every comedian was to host The Tonight Show. It was the Holy Grail, and like many people I thought that achieving that goal would define me as successful. But that is not true. No specific job or career goal defines me, and it should not define you. In 2000—in 2000—I told graduates to not be afraid to fail, and I still believe that. But today I tell you that whether you fear it or not, disappointment will come. The beauty is that through disappointment you can gain clarity, and with clarity comes conviction and true originality.

Many of you here today are getting your diploma at this Ivy League school because you have committed yourself to a dream and worked hard to achieve it. And there is no greater cliché in a commencement address than "follow your dream." Well I am here to tell you that whatever you think your dream is now, it will probably change. And that's okay...

I have told you many things today, most of it foolish but some of it true. I'd like to end my address by breaking a taboo and quoting myself from 17 months ago. At the end of my final program with NBC, just before signing off, I said "Work hard, be kind, and amazing things will happen." Today, receiving this honor and speaking to the Dartmouth Class of 2011 from behind a tree-trunk, I have never believed that more.

I can't think of better advice to give to recent college graduates--and anyone, really.

You can read the text of the speech here (but it's much more fun to watch it).

Feel good:

This weekend, I participated in Relay for Life, an overnight fundraising event to benefit the American Cancer Society:

At Relay, teams of people camp out at a local high school, park, or fairground and take turns walking or running around a track or path. Each team is asked to have a representative on the track at all times during the event. Because cancer never sleeps, Relays are overnight events up to 24 hours in length.

For the second year, I was on team Survive, Thrive and Endure, one of 164 teams that participated. All in all, over $241,557.10 was raised by 2053 participants (our team raised over $7000)!

Saturday night into Sunday morning, I walked 12 miles in honor of both of my grandmothers. It was a chilly night (much colder than I had anticipated), and I don't remember being as exhausted so early on last year, but it was a great night. While I had a good time with my friends, the cause and mood were not lost. Looking forward to doing it next year!

Friday LOL: Baseball Edition

As we head into the weekend that traditionally begins summer, I thought more Alec Baldwin/John Krasinski baseball laughs were in order:



"You have the hands of a plumber!"

Poster love:

I am really digging on these Sasha Blair-designed posters for the Washington Lottery:





Great typography, whimsical illustrations... all in all, these posters are definitely winners (see what I did there?).

Themes:

I don't look back on the old Mac OS (pre OS X) design fondly, but you have to admit, it does make a quirky Wordpress theme:

Friday LOL: Hipster edition

Dads are the original hipsters: high-larious.

Your dad wore Chuck Taylors before you did. Those were his “Just do it” shoes. He could ran faster, jump higher and ride your mom longer because of them. The only training you hipsters have done in those shoes are Natural Spirit chain smoking marathons and smug bike rides to dive bars. I wish time travel was real, just so your dad could kick your own ass for wearing the shoes that he made a legend.

Love it.

Exciting:

A Marimekko online shop, via Crate + Barrel? Sign me up, please!

Surprise, surprise: I love Marimekko prints! The bold, colorful designs always make me feel so happy. In fact, if I didn't already love my comforter, I would totally spring for this bedding set:



Adorbs, right?

Revised work:

trishareger.com



The interior design firm Reger has been my client for years. They started with a snazzy flash website that showcased their beautiful work (go ahead, flip through their portfolio section, I'll wait). Unfortunately, we all know about the iPhone, iPad, and the subsequent demise of flash.

Recently they wanted to update their website, and wanted to be more visible on mobile devices. I think we all know where this is headed... no more flash-based website!

The design of the site is basically the same as when it was programed with flash, and what they lost in fluidity going from page to page, they more than made up for in the time the site loads. The entire team at Reger is thrilled they made the switch, as am I.

Yay, revised work!

Want:

Holy hell, I need to get me a letterpress necklace, pronto:



Gorgeousness.

(via Joanna Goddard)

Monday LOL: silly edition

Sometimes, a girl's just gotta to ask herself: am I wearing pants?



With the onset of leggings, jeggings, and other questionable -eggings, sometimes a girl's gotta consult a high power to determine if her legs are covered in proper attire.

Not sure if you're wearing pants? Check out this flowchart in it's entirety here.

Like:

I was in a Starbucks recently, and this CD was at the counter:



(Starbucks sidebar: new coconut mocha frappuccino. Try it. Seriously, you can thank me later)

So, I'm all waiting in line, and this kd lang CD catches my eye. I love the layout--I would totally buy this based on the cover art alone.; nice photo, gorgeous type. Well, of course it's gorgeous because the next day, my type-design crush Ale Paul tweeted:

Photo: k.d.lang new album using Mrs Sheppards! Sing it loud…

Love it.