cooking : crafts : organization : gardening : thrifting : going green
I’m not sure if it was because of Renegade, or because of my giant knits, or just because, but last month something changed with my little business. I’ve been selling crafts in some form for almost three years now, but not until July did I really start to feel like it was working. I’d been [...]
It feels like I’ve been holding in this news for an eternity, so I’m thrilled to be able to announce that in addition to our upcoming marriage, Mike and I will also be moving to Berkeley, California! Mike got a job with a super cool non-profit journalism group called California Watch, and he will be [...]
I left my full-time job in June of 2009, so it’s now been a full year since I became a freelancer. I guess I thought that since I’d been a freelancer before, I would pretty much know what I was doing. But the last year has been full of a lot more surprises than I [...]
Yesterday I found out that our local paper, and my former employer, won a Pulitzer Prize. Mary Chind won for her incredible photograph of a rescue on the Des Moines River. I don’t think anyone who works there would deny that the last year has been tough on journalists. Really tough. Something like this reminds [...]
My whole life I’ve been a planner and a worrier. I’ve always had a next step and a good measure of security. It’s so strange to go into each month not knowing where my income will come from or what exactly my job will be. But I think each month I get a little more [...]
Compared to the last couple of months, July (my first month as a freelancer) was an absolute breeze. In August, everything just became real. I realized that having lost an assignment that brought in several hundred dollars a month with no replacement, I was getting a little bit behind each month. I started asking Mike [...]
Talking with a friend last night, we both realized it was almost August already. And that made me realize that I’ve made it through my first month as a freelancer! It’s been good. Really good. Kind of strange, given that a week of it was spent in Lawrence doing basically nothing, a week in Nia [...]
Two of my crochet patterns — vintage hanger covers and a colorful granny square pillow — have been published in a new book. You can now order So Pretty! Crochet, by my talented friend Amy Palanjian, at Amazon.com. 
